Co-management
CO-MANAGEMENT OF PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC ILLNESS
The management of patients with complex chronic diseases requires close collaboration, or comanagement, by specialists and primary care providers. While we know that patients may see many specialists in addition to their family doctor, we do not fully understand how comanagement affects patient outcomes. Our long-term goal is to implement an intervention to strengthen co-management of patients discharged from general medicine units, and evaluate the intervention using administrative health data. Studies that use administrative health data can look at the population as a whole, services provided by different physicians, and patient outcomes (such as hospitalization and death), in a cost-efficient manner. In this study, we will interview family physicians and specialists to identify the attributes of co-management. Findings from this study will inform the development of an intervention for patients discharged from general medicine units in the London Health Sciences Centre. Results will also help us identify codes and patterns in administrative health data that signal co-management.
Funding: Western Strategic Support for CIHR Success Seed Grant
Principal Investigator: Maria Mathews
Co-Investigators: Mark Goldszmidt, Andrew Appleton, Bridget Ryan, Eric Wong
