Health Quality Ontario (HQO) has released its yearly report on Ontario’s health system, Measuring Up. Based on the Common Quality Agenda, the report presents a profile of Ontarians’ health, the performance of our health system and a comparison with the rest of Canada and other countries. As such, we encourage members to review it.
The section on primary care (pg. 40) presents indicators related to access to primary care, patient involvement in decisions related to their care and recommended screening tests, with some comparisons at the LHIN, provincial and international levels. A number of these same indicators are reported specifically for AFHTO members in Data to Decisions (D2D). In our most recent report, D2D 2.0 results indicated AFHTO members are doing better than average for primary care in Ontario (e.g. in same day/next day access). D2D is showing encouraging results for AFHTO members and provides guidance for further improvement, watch for the next iteration of D2D in January 2016.
Measuring Up precedes a report specifically on primary care expected to be released in November 2015. HQO states on pg. 112 that the new report “will mark the beginning of regular, focused reporting on primary care in Ontario. This will include an upcoming report on the experiences of primary care physicians, comparing Ontario with other countries through the 2015 international survey by The Commonwealth Fund.” For further details you can read the relevant articles and reports below:
- Measuring Up, Health Quality Ontario – Oct. 13, 2015 (full report)
- “Health of Ontario's health system mixed, report finds”, Toronto Star- Oct. 13, 2015
- “Ontario families feel toll of caring for ailing, elderly relatives: study”, The Globe and Mail – Oct. 13, 2015
- “Comparing Health Quality Ontario’s new Measuring Up report to D2D 1.0 results”, AFHTO – Nov. 20, 2014