Evaluation of the Practice Support Program

Issue: BCMJ, vol. 51, No. 2, March 2009, Pages 64-65 News
By:

The General Practice Services Committee (GPSC) implemented the Practice Support Program (PSP) in May 2007 to support general practitioners in clinical redesign, practice management redesign, and optimizing clinical information systems. An important component of the PSP is participation in accredited learning modules.

As part of a recent evaluation of the PSP, 215 physicians and 161 MOAs who completed learning modules also completed surveys regarding the presentation and perceived benefits of the modules. Twenty-one physicians who had not completed learning modules completed surveys regarding the reasons for not completing.

The findings indicated that both the physicians and the MOAs who completed learning modules were generally satisfied and felt the modules had a positive impact.

Of the physicians who completed the Advanced Access module, 50% indicated that wait times for urgent appointments had decreased (by an average of 2.1 days) and 73% indi­cated that wait times for regular and third-next-available appointments had decreased (by an average of 4.6 and 4.1 days, respectively). In addition, 64% of physicians had reduced their backlog and 62% were able to start and end their day on time.

Of the physicians who completed the Chronic Disease Management (CDM) module, 89% indicated that attending the module had enabled them to take better care of their pa­tients with chronic diseases, 83% were able to identify which of their patients require CDM, 87% felt they actively considered CDM guidelines in providing care, and 65% were more satisfied with their work.

Of the physicians who completed the Patient Self-Management module, 54% felt it enabled them to work in a more efficient manner and 71% indicated it had increased their satisfaction with their work.

For physicians who completed the Group Medical Visits module, 73% indicated they were able to work in a more efficient manner and 82% indicated they were more satisfied with their work.

Of the 21 physicians who did not complete learning modules, 48% in­dicated that they had already incorporated most of the changes covered in the learning modules into their practices.

More information on PSP is available at www.practicesupport.bc.ca and www.impactbc.ca.

—Liza Kallstrom
Practice Support Program

. Evaluation of the Practice Support Program. BCMJ, Vol. 51, No. 2, March, 2009, Page(s) 64-65 - News.



Above is the information needed to cite this article in your paper or presentation. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) recommends the following citation style, which is the now nearly universally accepted citation style for scientific papers:
Halpern SD, Ubel PA, Caplan AL, Marion DW, Palmer AM, Schiding JK, et al. Solid-organ transplantation in HIV-infected patients. N Engl J Med. 2002;347:284-7.

About the ICMJE and citation styles

The ICMJE is small group of editors of general medical journals who first met informally in Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1978 to establish guidelines for the format of manuscripts submitted to their journals. The group became known as the Vancouver Group. Its requirements for manuscripts, including formats for bibliographic references developed by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), were first published in 1979. The Vancouver Group expanded and evolved into the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), which meets annually. The ICMJE created the Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals to help authors and editors create and distribute accurate, clear, easily accessible reports of biomedical studies.

An alternate version of ICMJE style is to additionally list the month an issue number, but since most journals use continuous pagination, the shorter form provides sufficient information to locate the reference. The NLM now lists all authors.

BCMJ standard citation style is a slight modification of the ICMJE/NLM style, as follows:

  • Only the first three authors are listed, followed by "et al."
  • There is no period after the journal name.
  • Page numbers are not abbreviated.


For more information on the ICMJE Recommendations for the Conduct, Reporting, Editing, and Publication of Scholarly Work in Medical Journals, visit www.icmje.org

BCMJ Guidelines for Authors

Leave a Reply