February 6, 2013

Sentinels can now complete an online submission form for Mainpro-C Credits under the CPCSSN Quality Assurance Program here: CPCSSN Quality Assurance Program - Submission form for Mainpro-C Credits

June 1, 2012

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) has now approved the establishment of CPCSSN as a Standing Committee of the CFPC Board!
Dr. Marie-Dominique Beaulieu, Chair of the CFPC Board of Directors expressed the following in a message to Dr. Richard Birtwhistle, Chair of the CPCSSN “…the CFPC Board of Directors met June 1, 2012 and fully supported the establishment of a CPCSSN standing committee within the College, with you as Chair.”

May 1, 2012

Our latest installment of the Sentinel Eye in this month’s Canadian Family Physician has now been published. Thanks to all our authors! You can find a copy of the article here: http://www.cfp.ca/content/58/5/e298.full.pdf+html

January 31, 2012

CPCSSN is very fortunate to have a number of articles featured this month's Canadian Family Physician.  Please take a look at the Commentary, Fast Facts, Research Web Exclusive and Sentinel Eye sections to see the wonderful contributions from our team members!

PDF versions in English and French can be found here: http://www.cfp.ca/content/by/year

October 1, 2011

CPCSSN will have two articles published in this month’s Canadian Family Physician.  The articles featured will include a regular series titled “Sentinel Eye” as well as one focused on Ethics & Privacy.

Both articles can be found here:
http://www.cfp.ca/content/57/10/1219.full.pdf+html
http://www.cfp.ca/content/57/10/1165.full.pdf+html

Look out for upcoming articles!

March 1, 2011

The inaugural progress meeting of the National Population Health Study of Neurological Conditions (NPHSNC) was held in Toronto on March 1, 2011.  Over 140 researchers, stakeholders and government representatives and Neurological Health Charities Canada (NHCC) members received a detailed introduction to the work taking place across the country.  Drs. Richard Birtwhistle and Neil Drummond, primary investigators for the Neurological conditions project within CPCSSN, and Anita Lambert-Lanning, CPCSSN manager attended the event on behalf of CPCSSN.  Download Brain Matters newsletters at:   http://www.mybrainmatters.ca/en/brain-matters-newsletter

November 1, 2010

The College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), on behalf of the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN), has signed a 29 month contribution agreement with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to add three neurological conditions to the CPCSSN surveillance and research project.   CPCSSN’s data collection will now include information on: rates of prevalence & incidence, risk factors, health care provision and utilization, and outcomes for Alzheimer’s and related dementias, Epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.  

Alzheimer’s and related dementias, Epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease and are three commonly found neurological conditions in Primary Care. CPCSSN is a pan-Canadian surveillance system which accesses chronic disease related data directly from the electronic medical records (EMR) of participating sentinel primary care providers, for the purposes of epidemiological research and health system utilization analyses. In order to include these conditions CPCSSN will develop and validate case definitions, as well as identify and define key additional variables related to their diagnosis, etiology and treatment. This project builds on the existing CPCSSN database to establish a primary care-based registry for patients with these conditions across the country.
CPCSSN will continue existing partnerships with CFPC, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), Canadian Primary Care Practice Based Research Networks (CPCPBRN), Canadian Universities, and will also work in conjunction with the Alzheimer’s Society of Canada, Canadian League Against Epilepsy, Epilepsy Ontario, and the Parkinson’s Society of Canada.

Funding to integrate this neurological work with the main CPCSSN surveillance project began November 1, 2010.

Oct 14 , 2010

CPCSSN Media Launch at the Family Medicine Forum – Vancouver, BC

May 17, 2010

The CPCSSN pilot and feasibility stages I and II have been a remarkably successful venture resulting in the association of nine primary care research networks from six different provinces using seven different electronic medical record systems. Approximately 140 sentinel physician practices were recruited between 2008-2010.  CPCSSN’s goal is to have between 600-1000 sentinel physician practices by 2015. A national network of data managers, network directors strategized and effectively partnered with the CFPC throughout the two years of the feasibility project.  A fully functional, secure, de-identified central repository was established at the High Performance Computing Virtual Laboratory at Queen’s University for use by governments and academic researchers for both monitoring Canadian chronic disease rates and improving health care outcomes.  Internally, plausible disease prevalence rates across all networks for all five chronic conditions initially under study were produced.   Also, a viable denominator methodology using the yearly contact group was developed for chronic disease surveillance in Canada.  CPCSSN has taken advantage of the unique opportunity to embrace our current EMR technology for the purpose of primary healthcare surveillance.  After a successful 2 year pilot project the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) signed a 5 year agreement with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) to continue surveillance on 5 chronic diseases (COPD, depression, diabetes, hypertension, and osteoarthritis) using various EMRs.    Family physician offices working within nine (9) local primary care/practice-based research networks (PCPBRNs) across Canada form the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN).   

March 11, 2010

Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) hosted a consensus workshop on chronic disease indicators for a Canadian primary care sentinel surveillance system in Ottawa.   Attendees included representatives from the current board of directors of the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) a sub-entity of the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), Chronic Disease Surveillance Advisory Committee, the Task Group on Surveillance of Chronic Disease and Injury, and the Canadian Institute of Health Information, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.  Recommendations from this meeting will be made available by the fall of 2010.

Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Control (CCDPC) website

Nov 19 , 2009

CPCSSN presentations were given at North American Primary Care Research Group (NAPCRG) conference in Montreal (Nov 14-18), including :

- "A Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN): Initial Development and Privacy Issues" by Jyoti Kotecha and Dr. Donna Manca
- "Towards a Primary Care-based Sentinel Surveillance System for Chronic Disease in Canada: Benefits and Implications for Public Health and Policies" by Dr. Richard Birtwhistle, Claudia Lagacé and Anita Lambert-Lanning

Nov 1 , 2009

Family Medicine Forum 2009 in Calgary (Oct 29-31), included CPCSSN materials:

- "Improving data quality in EMRs for chronic disease management" - a presentation by Dr. Richard Birtwhistle, Dr. Karim Keshavjee, Ken Martin and Anita Lambert-Lanning
- "Development of the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN): The Newfoundland Perspective" - a poster presented by Tao Chen

Sep 14, 2009

CFPC members , Dr. Richard Birtwhistle MD, CCFP, FCFP and Dr. Karim Keshavjee MD, CCFP provided the opening plenary presentations about the progress of the CPCSSN initiative at the 5th Annual Practice Based Research Network Conference hosted by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), June 24-26, 2009 in Bethesda, Maryland.  The presentations shared details about the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) and preliminary results from this major, multi-practice based research network (PBRN) effort to monitor and understand chronic care management by primary care clinicians using EMRs in Canada. Click on Dr. Keshavjee’s to view his slides and click on Dr. Birtwhistle to view his slides.

May 22, 2009

Jyoti Kotecha's "A Canadian Primary Care Chronic Disease Sentinel Surveillance" poster will be presented during the 20th Canadian Bioethics Society Conference in Hamilton, ON on June 12-13, 2009

May 6, 2009

Dr. Karim Keshavjee will present "Developing a primary care chronic disease surveillance network in Canada: Health informatics
challenges and proposed solutions" at e-Health 2009: Leadership in Action on June 2, 2009.

Mar 19, 2009

Dr. Richard Birtwhistle & Dr. Karim Keshavjee are announced as the keynote speakers at the upcoming AHRQ PBRN meeting in June in Washington DC.

Mar 17, 2009

Updated CPCSSN website draft now available.

Feb 26, 2009

Dr. Karim Keshavjee presents “Electronic Records: a challenge to our current surveillance approaches?” at the PHAC conference - Using Provincial & Territorial Health Administrative Data for Chronic Disease Surveillance - Challenges and Opportunities in Ottawa, ON.

Feb 20, 2009

Dr. Karim Keshavjee presents "Failure of Electronic Medical Records in Canada: A Failure of Policy or a Failure of Technology?" at the Information Technology and Communications in Health (ITCH) conference in Victoria, BC.

Feb 12, 2009

All four CPCSSN related submissions to the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CASHPR) conference in Calgary for May were accepted!

A Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN): initial development and privacy issues
- Manca & Kotecha

Towards a primary care-based sentinel surveillance system for chronic disease in Canada: benefits and implications for public health and policies
- Lagacé & Lambert-Lanning

The Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network: creating data sources for primary care research in chronic disease
- Birtwhistle & Lambert-Lanning

Developing a Primary Care Electronic Medical Record Chronic Disease Surveillance Network in Canada, Data Quality and Lessons Learned
- Keshavjee & Mukhi