Primary Care Practice Reports: Administrative Data Profiles for Identifying and Prioritizing Areas for Quality Improvement.

Information to help guide quality improvement activities in primary care should be readily available, routinely updated and include comparisons across groups, regions and jurisdictions. Primary care practice reports, developed jointly by the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences and Health Quality Ontario, is one such effort. These data include practice demographics, the prevalence of common chronic conditions, the use of health services and measures of chronic disease prevention and management.

Advance directives: survey of primary care patients.

Objective: To establish the prevalence of patients with advance directives in a family practice, and to describe patients' perspectives on a family doctor's role in initiating discussions about advance directives.

Design: A self-administered patient questionnaire.

Setting: A busy urban family medicine teaching clinic in Hamilton, Ont.

Test ordering for preventive health care among family medicine residents.

Objective: To determine which screening tests family medicine residents order as part of preventive health care.

Design: A cross-sectional survey.

Setting: Alberta and Ontario.

Frailty: Identifying elderly patients at high risk of poor outcomes.

Objective: To help family physicians better recognize frailty and its implications for managing elderly patients.

Sources Of Information: PubMed-MEDLINE was searched from 1990 to 2013. The search was restricted to English-language articles using the following groups of MeSH headings and key words: frail elderly, frail, frailty; aged, geriatrics, geriatric assessment, health services for the aged; and primary health care, community health services, and family practice.

Approach to the new oral anticoagulants in family practice: part 2: addressing frequently asked questions.

Objective: To address common "what if" questions that arise relating to the long-term clinical follow-up and management of patients receiving the new oral anticoagulants (NOACs).

Sources Of Information: For this narrative review, we searched the PubMed database for recent (January 2008 to week 32 of 2013) clinical studies relating to NOAC use for stroke prevention in atrial fibrillation and for the treatment of acute venous thromboembolism. We used this evidence base to address prespecified questions relating to NOAC use in primary care settings.

Predicting international medical graduate success on college certification examinations: responding to the Thomson and Cohl judicial report on IMG selection.

Objective: To determine predictors of international medical graduate (IMG) success in accordance with the priorities highlighted by the Thomson and Cohl judicial report on IMG selection.

Design: Retrospective assessment using regression analyses to compare the information available at the time of resident selection with those trainees' national certification examination outcomes.

Setting: McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont.

Trends in high-dose opioid prescribing in Canada.

Objective: To describe trends in rates of prescribing of high-dose opioid formulations and variations in opioid product selection across Canada.

Design: Population-based, cross-sectional study.

Setting: Canada.

Systematic review of clinical features of suspected colorectal cancer in primary care.

Objective: To systematically review the diagnostic accuracy of clinical features associated with colorectal cancer (CRC) presenting in primary care.

Data Sources: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for studies in primary care that provided information on clinical features predictive of CRC. Positive predictive values were used to guide the determination of clinical features associated with increased risk of CRC.

Systematic review of guidelines for the management of suspected lung cancer in primary care.

Objective: To systematically review the literature and provide an update and integration of existing peer-reviewed guidelines with recent systematic reviews and with primary studies related to the early recognition and management of lung cancer in primary care.

Data Sources: MEDLINE and EMBASE were searched for relevant articles. The quality of the evidence to support existing guideline recommendations, and the consistency of recommendations with updated evidence, were assessed.

Guideline for referral of patients with suspected colorectal cancer by family physicians and other primary care providers.

Objective: The aim of this guideline is to assist FPs and other primary care providers with recognizing features that should raise their suspicions about the presence of colorectal cancer (CRC) in their patients.

Composition Of The Committee: Committee members were selected from among the regional primary care leads from the Cancer Care Ontario Provincial Primary Care and Cancer Network, the members of the Ontario Colorectal Cancer Screening Advisory Committee, and the members of the Cancer Care Ontario Gastrointestinal Cancer Disease Site Group.

Methods: This guideline was developed through systematic review of the evidence base, synthesis of the evidence, and formal external review involving Canadian stakeholders to validate the relevance of recommendations.

Guideline for referral of patients with suspected lung cancer by family physicians and other primary care providers.

Objective: The aim of this guideline is to assist FPs and other primary care providers with recognizing features that should raise their suspicions about the presence of lung cancer in their patients.

Composition Of The Committee: Committee members were selected from among the regional primary care leads from the Cancer Care Ontario Provincial Primary Care and Cancer Network and from among the members of the Cancer Care Ontario Lung Cancer Disease Site Group.

Methods: This guideline was developed through systematic review of the evidence base, synthesis of the evidence, and formal external review involving Canadian stakeholders to validate the relevance of recommendations.

Healthcare providers' perspectives of the supportive care needs of men with advanced prostate cancer.

Purpose/objectives: To examine healthcare providers' (HCPs') perceptions of the supportive care needs of men with advanced prostate cancer (APC).

Research Approach: A qualitative, descriptive study.

Setting: Healthcare facilities caring for men with APC in a south-central region of Ontario.

Social isolation in older adults who are frequent users of primary care services.

Objective: To describe older adults who are frequent users of primary care services and to explore associations between the number of primary care visits per year and multiple dimensions that define social isolation.

Design: Mailed, cross-sectional survey.

Setting: An urban academic primary care practice in Kingston, Ont.

Educational role of nurse practitioners in a family practice centre: perspectives of learners and nurses.

Objective: To examine the role of nurse practitioners (NPs) as educators of family medicine residents in order to better understand the interprofessional educational dynamics in a clinical teaching setting.

Design: A qualitative descriptive approach, using purposive sampling.

Setting: A family practice centre that is associated with an academic department of family medicine and is based in an urban area in southern Ontario.

Fourth Canadian Consensus Conference on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia: recommendations for family physicians.

Objective: To revise diagnostic strategies for Alzheimer disease (AD), update recommendations on symptomatic treatment of dementia, and provide an approach to rapidly progressive and early-onset dementias.

Composition Of The Committee: Experts and delegates representing relevant disciplines from diverse regions across Canada discussed and agreed upon revisions to the 2006 guidelines.

Methods: The GRADE (grading of recommendations, assessment, development, and evaluation) system was used to evaluate consensus on recommendations, which was defined as when 80% or more of participants voted for the recommendation.