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Background: Improving access to primary health care is among top priorities for many countries. Advanced Access (AA) is one of the most recommended models to improve timely access to care. Over the past 15 years, the AA model has been implemented in Canada, but the implementation of AA varies substantially among providers and clinics. Continuous quality improvement (CQI) approaches can be used to promote organizational change like AA implementation. While CQI fosters the adoption of evidence-based practices, knowledge gaps remain, about the mechanisms by which QI happens and the sustainability of the results. The general aim of the study is to analyse the implementation and effects of CQI cohorts on AA for primary care clinics. Specific objectives are: 1) Analyse the process of implementing CQI cohorts to support PHC clinics in their improvement of AA. 2) Document and compare structural organisational changes and processes of care with respect to AA within study groups (intervention and control). 3) Assess the effectiveness of CQI cohorts on AA outcomes. 4) Appreciate the sustainability of the intervention for AA processes, organisational changes and outcomes., Methods: Cluster-controlled trial allowing for a comprehensive and rigorous evaluation of the proposed intervention 48 multidisciplinary primary care clinics will be recruited to participate. 24 Clinics from the intervention regions will receive the CQI intervention for 18 months including three activities carried out iteratively until the clinic's improvement objectives are achieved: 1) reflective sessions and problem priorisation; 2) plan-do-study-act cycles; and 3) group mentoring. Clinics located in the control regions will receive an audit-feedback report on access. Complementary qualitative and quantitative data reflecting the quintuple aim will be collected over a period of 36 months., Results: This research will contribute to filling the gap in the generalizability of CQI interventions and accelerate the spread of effective AA improvement strategies while strengthening local QI culture within clinics. This research will have a direct impact on patients' experiences of care., Conclusion: This mixed-method approach offers a unique opportunity to contribute to the scientific literature on large-scale CQI cohorts to improve AA in primary care teams and to better understand the processes of CQI., Trial Registration: Clinical Trials: NCT05715151., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: When young adults transfer from pediatric to adult diabetes care they are at risk for deterioration of glycemic control, putting them at an increased risk of developing both acute and chronic complications. Despite increased awareness of these risks, there are gaps in care delivery during this vulnerable time and variability in the implementation of recommended transition practice. Audit and feedback (AF) interventions have a positive but variable effect on implementation of best practices. An expert group identified specific suggestions for optimizing the effectiveness of AF interventions. We aim to test an AF-based intervention incorporating these specific suggestions to improve transition practices and glycemic control in the first year after transfer from pediatric to adult diabetes care., Methods: This is a pragmatic quasi-experimental study; a series of three cohort studies (pre-implementation, early-implementation, and post-implementation) to compare the baseline adjusted hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) in the 12 months after the final pediatric visit in five pediatric diabetes centres within the Ontario Pediatric Diabetes Network in Ontario, Canada. The intervention includes three components: 1) centre-level feedback reports compiling data from chart abstraction, linked provincial administrative datasets, and patient-reported experience measures; 2) webinars for facilitated conversations/coaching about the feedback; and 3) online repository of curated transition resources for providers. The primary outcome will be analyzed using a multivariable linear regression model. We will conduct a qualitative process evaluation to understand intervention fidelity and to provide insight into the mechanisms of action of our results., Discussion: There is a need to develop an innovative system-level approach to improve outcomes and the quality of care for young adults with type 1 diabetes during the vulnerable time when they transfer to adult care. Our research team, a collaboration of health services, implementation science, and quality improvement researchers, are designing, implementing, and evaluating an AF-based intervention using recommendations about how to optimize effectiveness. This knowledge will be generalizable to other care networks that aim to deliver uniformly high-quality care in diverse care settings., Trial Registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03781973. Registered 13 December 2018. Date of enrolment of the first participant to the trial: June 1, 2019.

Purpose: Many survivors of childhood cancer are at high risk of late effects of their cancer therapy, including cardiac toxicity and subsequent malignant neoplasms (SMN). Current North American guidelines recommend periodic surveillance for these late effects. We conducted a systematic review of the literature to estimate rates of adherence to recommended surveillance and summarize studies evaluating interventions intended to increase adherence., Methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL) for articles published between January 2000 and September 2018 that reported adherence to surveillance for cardiac toxicity and SMN (breast and colorectal cancer) and interventions implemented to improve completion of recommended testing. Risk of bias was assessed using relevant Cochrane checklists. Due to heterogeneity and overlapping study populations, we used narrative synthesis to summarize the findings. This review was registered in PROSPERO: CRD42018098878., Results: Thirteen studies met our inclusion criteria for assessing adherence to surveillance, while five assessed interventions to improve rates of surveillance. No studies met criteria for low risk of bias. Completion of recommended surveillance was lowest for colorectal cancer screening (11.5-30.0%) followed by cardiomyopathy (22.3-48.1%) and breast cancer (37.0-56.5%). Factors such as patient-provider communication, engagement with the health care system, and receipt of information were consistently reported to be associated with higher rates of surveillance. Of five randomized controlled trials aimed at improving surveillance, only two significantly increase completion of recommended testing-one for echocardiography and one for mammography. Both involved telephone outreach to encourage and facilitate these tests., Conclusion: The majority of childhood cancer survivors at high risk of cardiac toxicity or SMN do not receive evidence-based surveillance. There is paucity of rigorous studies evaluating interventions to increase surveillance in this population., Implications for Cancer Survivors: Robust trials are needed to assess whether tailored interventions, designed based on unique characteristics and needs of each survivor population, could improve adherence.

Background: Elders living with polypharmacy may be taking medications that do not benefit them. Polypharmacy can be associated with elevated risks of poor health, reduced quality of life, high care costs, and persistently complex care needs. While many medications could be problematic, this project targets medications that should be deprescribed for most elders and for which guidelines and evidence-based deprescribing tools are available. These are termed potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIPs) and are as follows: proton pump inhibitors, benzodiazepines, antipsychotics, and sulfonylureas. Implementation strategies for deprescribing PIPs in complex older patient populations are needed., Methods: This will be a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial in community-based primary care practices across Canada. Eligible practices provide comprehensive primary care and have at least one physician that consents to participate. Community-dwelling patients aged 65 years and older with ten or more unique medication prescriptions in the past year will be included. The objective is to assess whether the intervention reduces targeted PIPs for these patients compared with usual care. The intervention, Structured Process Informed by Data, Evidence and Research (SPIDER), is a collaboration between quality improvement (QI) and research programs. Primary care teams will form interprofessional Learning Collaboratives and work with QI coaches to review electronic medical record data provided by their regional Practice Based Research Networks (PBRNs), identify areas of improvement, and develop and implement changes. The study will be tested for feasibility in three PBRNs (Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton) using prospective single-arm mixed methods. Findings will then guide a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial in five PBRNs (Calgary, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, and Halifax). Seven practices per PBRN will be recruited for each arm. The analysis will be by intention to treat. Ten percent of patients who have at least one PIP at baseline will be randomly selected to participate in the assessment of patient experience and self-reported outcomes. Qualitative methods will be used to explore patient and physician experience and evaluate SPIDER's processes., Conclusion: We are testing SPIDER in a primary care population with complex care needs. This could provide a widely applicable model for care improvement., Trial Registration: Clinicaltrials.gov NCT03689049 ; registered September 28, 2018.

Audit and feedback (A&F) is a commonly used quality improvement (QI) approach. A Cochrane review indicates that A&F is generally effective and leads to modest improvements in professional practice but with considerable variation in the observed effects. While we have some understanding of factors that enhance the effects of A&F, further research needs to explore when A&F is most likely to be effective and how to optimise it. To do this, we need to move away from two-arm trials of A&F compared with control in favour of head-to-head trials of different ways of providing A&F. This paper describes implementation laboratories involving collaborations between healthcare organisations providing A&F at scale, and researchers, to embed head-to-head trials into routine QI programmes. This can improve effectiveness while producing generalisable knowledge about how to optimise A&F. We also describe an international meta-laboratory that aims to maximise cross-laboratory learning and facilitate coordination of A&F research., Competing Interests: Competing interests: None declared., (© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2019. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ.)

Background: Diabetes registries contain vast amounts of data that can be used for quality improvement (QI) and are foundational elements of learning health systems; infrastructure to share data, create knowledge rapidly and inform decisions to improve health outcomes. QI interventions using adult diabetes registries are associated with improved glycemic control, complication screening rates, and reduced hospitalizations; pediatric data are limited., Objective: To evaluate the effects of QI strategies that use pediatric diabetes registry data on care processes, organization of care, and patient outcomes., Methods: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Google, Google Scholar, Directory of Open Access Journals, and diabetes registry websites for studies that evaluated the impact of QI interventions on diabetes care processes, care organization, or patient outcomes, using pediatric diabetes registry data. Two reviewers independently assessed eligibility, extracted data and assessed the risk of bias., Results: Twelve studies were included. Most interventions targeted health-care providers and evaluated effects on patient outcomes. Five of nine studies that evaluated hemoglobin A1c found improvements of 0.26% to 0.85% (2.8-9.3 mmol/mol) while four found no difference. Many report positive effects on care processes or organization. Study data could not be combined because of variable study design and outcome measures. Included studies represent a minority of existing registries., Conclusions: Pediatric diabetes registries are underused for QI and may facilitate improved care and outcomes. Existing vast amount of pediatric registry data could be used to foster the development of learning health systems and to improve diabetes care and outcomes., (© 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)

Background: Despite evidence supporting the effectiveness of diabetic retinopathy screening (DRS) in reducing the risk of sight loss, attendance for screening is consistently below recommended levels., Objectives: The primary objective of the review was to assess the effectiveness of quality improvement (QI) interventions that seek to increase attendance for DRS in people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes.Secondary objectives were:To use validated taxonomies of QI intervention strategies and behaviour change techniques (BCTs) to code the description of interventions in the included studies and determine whether interventions that include particular QI strategies or component BCTs are more effective in increasing screening attendance;To explore heterogeneity in effect size within and between studies to identify potential explanatory factors for variability in effect size;To explore differential effects in subgroups to provide information on how equity of screening attendance could be improved;To critically appraise and summarise current evidence on the resource use, costs and cost effectiveness., Search Methods: We searched the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, Embase, PsycINFO, Web of Science, ProQuest Family Health, OpenGrey, the ISRCTN, ClinicalTrials.gov, and the WHO ICTRP to identify randomised controlled trials (RCTs) that were designed to improve attendance for DRS or were evaluating general quality improvement (QI) strategies for diabetes care and reported the effect of the intervention on DRS attendance. We searched the resources on 13 February 2017. We did not use any date or language restrictions in the searches., Selection Criteria: We included RCTs that compared any QI intervention to usual care or a more intensive (stepped) intervention versus a less intensive intervention., Data Collection and Analysis: We coded the QI strategy using a modification of the taxonomy developed by Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) and BCTs using the BCT Taxonomy version 1 (BCTTv1). We used Place of residence, Race/ethnicity/culture/language, Occupation, Gender/sex, Religion, Education, Socioeconomic status, and Social capital (PROGRESS) elements to describe the characteristics of participants in the included studies that could have an impact on equity of access to health services.Two review authors independently extracted data. One review author entered the data into Review Manager 5 and a second review author checked them. Two review authors independently assessed risks of bias in the included studies and extracted data. We rated certainty of evidence using GRADE., Main Results: We included 66 RCTs conducted predominantly (62%) in the USA. Overall we judged the trials to be at low or unclear risk of bias. QI strategies were multifaceted and targeted patients, healthcare professionals or healthcare systems. Fifty-six studies (329,164 participants) compared intervention versus usual care (median duration of follow-up 12 months). Overall, DRS attendance increased by 12% (risk difference (RD) 0.12, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.10 to 0.14; low-certainty evidence) compared with usual care, with substantial heterogeneity in effect size. Both DRS-targeted (RD 0.17, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.22) and general QI interventions (RD 0.12, 95% CI 0.09 to 0.15) were effective, particularly where baseline DRS attendance was low. All BCT combinations were associated with significant improvements, particularly in those with poor attendance. We found higher effect estimates in subgroup analyses for the BCTs 'goal setting (outcome)' (RD 0.26, 95% CI 0.16 to 0.36) and 'feedback on outcomes of behaviour' (RD 0.22, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.29) in interventions targeting patients, and 'restructuring the social environment' (RD 0.19, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.26) and 'credible source' (RD 0.16, 95% CI 0.08 to 0.24) in interventions targeting healthcare professionals.Ten studies (23,715 participants) compared a more intensive (stepped) intervention versus a less intensive intervention. In these studies DRS attendance increased by 5% (RD 0.05, 95% CI 0.02 to 0.09; moderate-certainty evidence).Fourteen studies reporting any QI intervention compared to usual care included economic outcomes. However, only five of these were full economic evaluations. Overall, we found that there is insufficient evidence to draw robust conclusions about the relative cost effectiveness of the interventions compared to each other or against usual care.With the exception of gender and ethnicity, the characteristics of participants were poorly described in terms of PROGRESS elements. Seventeen studies (25.8%) were conducted in disadvantaged populations. No studies were carried out in low- or middle-income countries., Authors' Conclusions: The results of this review provide evidence that QI interventions targeting patients, healthcare professionals or the healthcare system are associated with meaningful improvements in DRS attendance compared to usual care. There was no statistically significant difference between interventions specifically aimed at DRS and those which were part of a general QI strategy for improving diabetes care. This is a significant finding, due to the additional benefits of general QI interventions in terms of improving glycaemic control, vascular risk management and screening for other microvascular complications. It is likely that further (but smaller) improvements in DRS attendance can also be achieved by increasing the intensity of a particular QI component or adding further components.

There is considerable variation in the quality of colonoscopy, attributable in part to endoscopist performance. Audit and feedback (A&F) provides health professionals with a summary of their performance over a period of time and is a common strategy used to improve provider performance. In this review, we discuss current understanding of the mechanism of A&F and describe specific features of effective A&F. To date, trials of A&F to improve colonoscopy performance report heterogeneous results, in part because colonoscopy is a complex procedural skill but also because the quality improvement interventions were sub-optimally implemented or inadequately evaluated. Nonetheless, evidence from a wide range of literature suggests that A&F has the potential to improve endoscopist performance. We discuss future directions for research in this area and provide guidance for providers or health system planners wishing to implement A&F to address quality of colonoscopy in their practice and/or jurisdiction., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)

Electronic practice data are increasingly being used to provide feedback to encourage practice improvement. However, evidence suggests that despite decades of experience, the effects of such interventions vary greatly and are not improving over time. Guidance on providing more effective feedback does exist, but it is distributed across a wide range of disciplines and theoretical perspectives. Through expert interviews; systematic reviews; and experience with providing, evaluating, and receiving practice feedback, 15 suggestions that are believed to be associated with effective feedback interventions have been identified. These suggestions are intended to provide practical guidance to quality improvement professionals, information technology developers, educators, administrators, and practitioners who receive such interventions. Designing interventions with these suggestions in mind should improve their effect, and studying the mechanisms underlying these suggestions will advance a stagnant literature.

Background: To improve quality of care and patient outcomes, health system decision-makers need to identify and implement effective interventions. An increasing number of systematic reviews document the effects of quality improvement programs to assist decision-makers in developing new initiatives. However, limitations in the reporting of primary studies and current meta-analysis methods (including approaches for exploring heterogeneity) reduce the utility of existing syntheses for health system decision-makers. This study will explore the role of innovative meta-analysis approaches and the added value of enriched and updated data for increasing the utility of systematic reviews of complex interventions., Methods/design: We will use the dataset from our recent systematic review of 142 randomized trials of diabetes quality improvement programs to evaluate novel approaches for exploring heterogeneity. These will include exploratory methods, such as multivariate meta-regression analyses and all-subsets combinatorial meta-analysis. We will then update our systematic review to include new trials and enrich the dataset by surveying authors of all included trials. In doing so, we will explore the impact of variables not, reported in previous publications, such as details of study context, on the effectiveness of the intervention. We will use innovative analytical methods on the enriched and updated dataset to identify key success factors in the implementation of quality improvement interventions for diabetes. Decision-makers will be involved throughout to help identify and prioritize variables to be explored and to aid in the interpretation and dissemination of results., Discussion: This study will inform future systematic reviews of complex interventions and describe the value of enriching and updating data for exploring heterogeneity in meta-analysis. It will also result in an updated comprehensive systematic review of diabetes quality improvement interventions that will be useful to health system decision-makers in developing interventions to improve outcomes for people with diabetes., Systematic Review Registration: PROSPERO registration no. CRD42013005165.