Fall 2023 (Volume 33, Number 3)
Project Athena Update:
CRA Focus Group Findings
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The Canadian Rheumatology Association (CRA) in
consultation with the Board of Directors identified
practice and electronic medical records (EMR) inefficiency
as a top priority for the CRA to address, based on
a series of member consultations in 2022. Work under
this stream will be dubbed Project Athena going forward.
To ensure a full understanding of the needs of
members, CRA staff and consultant Dr. Karim Keshavjee
held a focus group session with members to receive input
on key streams of the project and identify best practices.
Based on the successful focus group with rheumatologists
about the problems and potential solutions, the key
findings are as follows:
- Several sites are very efficient and willing to share
their lessons and practices. We are following up with
the sites to start collecting and documenting best
practices.
- Biologic reimbursement forms are particularly difficult
for rheumatologists to fill out. Upon further investigation,
it appears that several issues are not amenable
to technological solutions, including requests
for information that is not routinely added to EMRs
and requests for information that rheumatologists
feel is not germane to the patient’s treatment plan.
We will be actively seeking non-technological solutions
for these issues.
- Documenting the patient’s history is very time-consuming
and family doctors already do this. We will investigate
opportunities for data transfer.
- Getting new colleagues trained and up to speed on
the use of the EMR is challenging. The development
of simple videos to help with onboarding could be
useful.
- There are several operational efficiency issues that
practices face for which good technological solutions
exist, such as collecting patient-reported experience
and outcome measures and dealing with no-shows.
The CRA’s Quality Care Committee will provide oversight
for the EMR Optimization and the Quality Improvement
workstreams of Project Athena. The oversight
subcommittees will meet once a month to review materials
submitted by the Project Athena consultants.
The CRA is pleased to answer any questions that
members may have about the work of Project Athena. If
you have any questions or would like to discuss this project,
please contact CEO Dr. Ahmad Zbib at azbib@rheum.ca.
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