Grant: Team Grant: Community-Based Primary Healthcare - LOI

We aim to compare and improve how people with chronic diseases (like diabetes) are managed in family medicine and general practice in Canada (Ontario and Manitoba) and New Zealand. We formed a team of researchers from several disciplines and professions, and decision makers from both countries. We will test a comprehensive, quality improvement, accreditation model, by looking at the whole person, and not just at a single disease. Usually researchers study only one disease when they look at quality, without looking at other diseases or concerns that a person may have or the way in which the practice is organized. By looking at the whole person, all of the care a person receives and the practice itself, we will better understand the many factors that influence a person's health. Our team will undertake a program of research that has three areas, we will: 1) compare how health care policy has influenced the choice of quality improvement models in Canada and New Zealand; 2) examine data from electronic databases in both countries to see whether one country or province has better health care for chronic diseases; 3) test the impact of the Canadian version (called Quality) of the New Zealand primary care accreditation model (called Cornerstone) using rigorous methods. Our team is also interested in developing a next group of researchers interested in quality improvement in primary care and has invited junior researchers to join us. We will talk to patients, experts, and other decision makers over the course of the research to help us understand our findings, get direction and help spread information about the study's usefulness. Our studies will help us understand whether a more complete way of looking at quality in primary care can improve health care related to patients, chronic diseases, providers, and practices. The groups that oversee family doctors in both countries are interested in this research and in expanding the model if the program is successful.