Winter 2020 (Volume 30, Number 4)
Quality Care Committee Update
By Amanda Steiman, MD, MSc, FRCPC
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Writing about the Quality Care Committee’s 2020
year in review demands reflecting on a year that
has fundamentally changed the fabric of our
society and the way we live. The pandemic has upended
the way we interact, practice medicine, learn, and teach.
I both marvel and cringe at how close we were to the edge
of the pandemic precipice as we socialized, celebrated and
learned together at the CRA Annual Scientific Meeting
(ASM) in Victoria.
Winston Churchill is credited with saying that one
should “never let a good crisis go to waste.” Indeed, this
sentiment has never rung more true, as members of the
Quality Care Committee have worked to simultaneously
usher pre-pandemic initiatives through a changed world,
and pivot to others that focus on virtual care delivery in the
context of the traditionally high-touch/low-tech specialty
that we love.
I want to take a moment to laud Cheryl Barnabe’s outstanding
and sustained leadership as past Quality Care
Committee Chair, and her ongoing work as the Equity Subcommittee
Chair. She wears impossibly big shoes to fill with
both exceptional poise and measured tenacity, and we have
all benefitted from her vision and determination. Claire
Barber and Shirley Chow continue to lead the Quality and
Resource Stewardship Subcommittees, respectively, and I
continue to lead Access.
It has been a year that has highlighted the power of
collaboration on many fronts, with continued delivery of
Indigenous Health Education sessions, continued work
on generation of a Quality Report Card for rheumatologic
care, and collaboration on rheumatoid arthritis guideline
development with a focus on equity for marginalized/
at-risk patient populations. Collaborations with the Education
Committee have resulted in pragmatic guidance,
shared with members via the CRA COVID portal and
through presentations on return-to-work strategies in the
setting of COVID-19. Finally, in collaboration with the Pediatrics
Committee, we have embarked on work to improve
awareness and bolster support for transition to adult care,
with a publication outlining the results of a needs assessment
exercise and next steps forward, in press. We look forward
to fruitful multi-committee collaboration in building
a Telemedicine Working Group, born out of collaboration
between the Quality Care and Pediatrics committees, which
will strive to deliver pragmatic and, to the extent possible,
evidence-based guidance and support to CRA members in
care delivery through these unprecedented times.
We will continue to work and grow and learn in the setting
of this most unwelcome global turn of events, with a
steadfast commitment to the quality of care we deliver –
under any circumstances – to patients with rheumatic diseases.
Amanda Steiman, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Chair, CRA Quality Care Committee
Assistant Professor of Medicine,
University of Toronto
Clinician in Quality and Innovation
Rheumatologist,
Sinai Health System/University Health Network
Toronto, Ontario
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