Grant: Project Grant

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is the most common autoimmune inflammatory arthritis. It impacts approximately one in every 100 individuals. Individuals with RA experience joint pain, swelling which have a major impact on quality of life. Left untreated RA can be associated with high rates of disability, costly joint replacement surgeries, higher risk of heart and lung disease and even premature death. With early and appropriate treatment, patient outcomes including life expectancy are improved. Our team has worked with the national rheumatology community over the last decade to develop the tools to define and measure high quality healthcare for individuals with RA. One of the major challenges in measuring patient outcomes is available data. In Alberta, a provincial electronic health record is in the process of being implemented. This offers a significant opportunity to leverage the system to measure care delivery processes and patient outcomes provincially to support a "learning health system". Learning health systems leverage data collected in day-to-day patient encounters with the health system to ensure that the care provided meets the highest standards measured by established quality measures. In the present project we propose to develop an Alberta Rheumatology Learning Health System. We will first bring together a working group of individuals living with RA, healthcare providers, health system leaders to select a starter set of measures from our existing national framework. We will then work with data experts to develop strategies to use the data in the health record to track the selected quality measures over time. We will work with experts to develop the best strategies for feeding this information back to healthcare providers and health system leaders to improve healthcare delivery and patient outcomes in the province. We will also work with regional and national organizations to share our findings and contribute to national quality improvement efforts.