RACE Initiative Wins BC Quality Award
Patients with chronic conditions often navigate multiple care interfaces and may experience fragmented care. Ideally care should be centred around the patient and family physician with support from specialty care.
Vancouver Coastal Health partnered with Providence Health Care and the Shared Care Committee in 2010 to facilitate collaboration between specialists and family physicians. The result was Rapid Access to Consultative Expertise (RACE) – an innovative model of shared care that lets family physicians phone one number, choose from a selection of specialty services and be routed to a specialist for “just-in-time” advice.
On November 1, RACE won the Living with Illness category in the 2014 BC Quality Awards. The awards, which are presented annually by the BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, celebrate improvements made in improving quality of care. RACE’s team will receive a $2,500 sponsorship to help support or disseminate learning from the initiative, attend a ceremony at Health Talks on February 26, 2014, and deliver a presentation at Quality Forum 2014 (February 27 & 28).
RACE began as a prototype with five specialty areas and, based on the needs of family physicians, has grown to include 17 specialty areas. It operates Monday to Friday from 0800-1700 and additional specialty areas will continue to be added in response to the requests of family physicians.
75% of RACE’s calls are returned within 10 minutes, and 90% of the calls are under 15 minutes long. A data collection tool shows that of the calls that family physicians placed to the RACE line, 39% of those patients would have otherwise been referred directly for a face-to-face consultation with a specialist. In 80% of those patients, the face-to-face consultation was unnecessary after RACE was used; the program has also prevented 72% of referrals to an emergency department that otherwise would have been made.
Learn more about RACE at www.RACEconnect.ca and the initiative’s Quality Award win at http://bcpsqc.ca/bc-quality-awards/.
Congratulations to all the RACE team members for this achievement!
Carole Gillam, Executive Director, Primary Care, Vancouver Coastal Health
Margot Wilson, Director Chronic Disease Management, Providence Health Care
Dr. Garey Mazowita, Head, Family & Community Medicine, Providence Health Care, Clinical Professor, UBC Faculty of Medicine, Family Practice Lead for Shared Care Providence Health Care
Dr. Robert Levy, Professor, Respiratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Specialist Lead for Shared Care, Providence Health Care.
David Thompson, VP Seniors Care and Clinical Support Services, Providence Health Care
Helen Roberts, Change Specialist, Providence Health Care
Clay Barber, Executive Lead, of the Shared Care Committee
Terry Chang, Chair, Vancouver Division of Family Practice
As well as numerous Patient Representatives, Specialists, Family Physicians, and Clinical and Administrative leadership from across Providence Health Care and Vancouver Coastal Health