Self-Assessment Tool

What is PMH

Across the country, jurisdictions are embracing the evidence-based Patient’s Medical Home (PMH) as a mechanism to improve care, decrease costs to the healthcare system and increase satisfaction for both providers and patients.

The PMH is a family practice defined by its patients as the place they feel most comfortable presenting and discussing their personal and family health and medical concerns.  The PMH vision is built around what family doctors do best – providing excellent care by building long-term relationships with patients in the local community.

We know that family physicians are at the heart of the health care system, acting as the first point of contact and a reliable medical resource.  We also know that systems with strong primary health care deliver better health outcomes, enhance efficiency, and improve quality of care.  Help us build that system!

Self-Assessment Drive

The PMH is a vision to which every practice can aspire.  One of the first steps to understanding where your practice fits on the PMH spectrum is to complete the Self-Assessment Tool, developed by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC).  The Self-Assessment Tool is a self-reflective questionnaire that helps family physicians analyze how closely their practice aligns with the pillars of the PMH.

The Saskatchewan College of Family Physicians (SCFP) and Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) would like to encourage all family physicians to complete the Self-Assessment Tool and share your results with us.

Increasing family physician awareness and advocacy is central to advancing the PMH vision in Saskatchewan.  This requires a multi-faceted approach including enabling physicians to self-assess their current state and being able to aggregate this data provincially in order to understand the current state and advocate for changes.

To support physicians to complete the tool, compensation up to one-hour will be provided.  While the CFPC website suggests the tool takes 1-1.5 hours to complete, realistically, it’s more like 0.5-1 hour.

How do I participate?

• Go to the Self-Assessment Tool and complete the PMH Questionnaire
• You should receive two emails, the first with a token number and then a score
• Complete the survey to initiate the reimbursement process, you will need your token number.

Notes on the Self-Assessment

Scores on the self-assessment in no way reflects your ability to provide incredible care to your patients.  We anticipate that due to health system limitations that most will score lower in certain areas. This is actually a good thing as the data collected will be used to help advocate for the allocation of more resources to physician practices.  There are no punitive actions coming out of sharing these results and your individual data will not be shared.  Anything shared will be de-identified and aggregate.

I’ve completed the Self-Assessment – now what?

If you’d like to learn more about PMH or actionable steps you can take now to better align with PMH principles there is information in the Saskatchewan PMH Implementation Kit, including the Best practice Panel Report.

SCFP and SMA will be co-hosting a PMH Symposium on June 4.  More information on location and registration will be available shortly.

While the PMH vision largely supports practice-level improvements, there is currently work within the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) to implement Health Networks which aim to improve patient care experiences through team-based care.  Health Networks are collaborative teams of health professionals, including physicians, and community partners providing fully integrated services to meet the health needs of individuals and communities. As the PMH vision stresses an interprofessional approach, in which health care providers with different types of skills and training work together for the benefit of the patient, intentional connections with Health Networks allow family physicians to strengthen certain pillars such as connected care and continuity of care.  Check out the SHA website and connect with your local Executive Director of Primary Health Care if you would like to learn more.

Finally, if you would like to become more involved in provincial PMH advocacy, please reach out to Shona den Brok ([email protected]) for more information.

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