person looking at graphs on phone and laptop

CareCanvas

Better Care Made Easier.

CareCanvas is a dashboard to support practice improvement—for physicians, by physicians. Use CareCanvas to see your patient data and the system-level view of trends across various indicators.

CareCanvas is a joint initiative led by the Quality & Innovation Program and the Research Program within the University of Toronto Department of Family & Community Medicine. 

Visit CareCanvas

Designed by family physicians for family physicians

Leveraging U of T's UTOPIAN, CareCanvas provides data for your eyes only, designed to help you help your patients. 

Catch up on chronic disease and preventative care

CareCanvas includes both physician and patient-level data from the practice electronic medical record (EMR) data, with each indicator including a patient list.

Focus on what matters to you

Easy to use in your work day to assess gaps, CareCanvas summarizes more than 15 quality of care measures stratified by neighborhood income level.

How do I access CareCanvas?

To access CareCanvas, physicians need to sign up to contribute data to the University of Toronto Practice Based Research Network (UTOPIAN) Data Safe Haven—a secure researchable database comprised of de-identified patient records that can be re-identified at the practice level. These records are extracted from participating practices every 6 months. Data is then cleaned, coded, de-identified and stored securely.  

There is no financial cost to participating in UTOPIAN for physicians and physicians can contribute if they use one of the three most commonly used EMRs in Ontario: Telus Practice Solutions, Accuro or Oscar. There is no limit to the number of physicians that can sign up and the value of CareCanvas will grow as more physicians participate and contribute data.

Why CareCanvas?

COVID-19 has resulted in a worsening of mental and physical health and a backlog of preventive and chronic disease care. With CareCanvas, family physicians receive information and support to help them take a proactive, population-based approach to COVID-19 recovery. 

Funding & support

CareCanvas development is being led by the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto in collaboration with UTOPIAN, POPLAR, and Ontario Health Implementation Laboratory and has received funding support from St. Michael’s Hospital Medical Services Association (SMHA) Alternate Funding Plan (AFP) Innovation Fund, Women’s College Hospital Academic and Medical Services Group (WCHAMSG) Alternate Funding Plan (AFP) Innovation Fund, and  the  INSPIRE-PHC Program.  

CareCanvas will also be linked with continuing professional development (CPD) to directly support physicians to take action using their data and also drive a paradigm shift towards proactive, population-based care and a learning health system where data is used to inform practice and practices in turn influence what data is collected and what research questions are asked. 

Acknowledgements

CareCanvas is a collaborative effort involving numerous individuals including Dr. Tara Kiran, Dr. Adam Cadotte, Dr. Payal Agarwal, Dr. Noah Ivers, Dr. Jennifer Shuldiner, Dr. Susie Kim, Dr. Michelle Greiver, Ms. Maryam Danesh, and Ms. Kirsten Eldridge. 

Contact us

For more information, please contact care.canvas@utoronto.ca

Reference information

Table 1. Quality measures included in CareData 

Measures will continue to be refined based on feedback from clinicians and other stakeholders as well as evolving clinical guidelines  

Category 

Quality indicator 

Practice demographics 

  • Number of active patients and total visits 

  • Age, sex, neighbourhood income and geographic distribution of patients 

  • Chronic condition prevalence 

  • Total visit volumes in last 12 months; Proportion of all visits that are virtual 

Diabetes  

  • Prevalence: Percentage of patients with diabetes  

  • Glycemic control: Percentage of people with diabetes whose most recent A1c test is below 8.5 (regardless of when it was done) 

  • Retention in care: Percentage of people with diabetes with at least one in-person visit in the last 12 months  

  • Glycemic measurement: Percentage of people with diabetes with at least one A1c test in the last six months 

  • BP measurement: Percentage of people with diabetes who have had at least one BP reading in the last 12 months 

  • BP control: Percentage of people with diabetes with either of their last two BP readings are below 135/85 (regardless of when it was done) 

  • Statin prescribed: Percentage of people with diabetes who are 40 or older and are prescribed a statin 

  • Smoking prevalence: Percentage of people with diabetes who indicate they smoke cigarettes 

  • Smoking cessation: Percentage of people with diabetes who smoke who have had an recent cessation intervention 

Hypertension 

  • Prevalence: Percentage of patients with hypertension 

  • Hypertension control: Hypertension patients with last two BP readings in last 12 months below 145/95 

  • Retention in care: Percentage of patients with hypertension with at least one in-person visit in the last 12 months 

  • BP measurement: Percentage of patients with hypertension with at least one BP reading in the last 12 months 

  • Smoking prevalence: Percentage of people with hypertension who indicate they smoke cigarettes 

  • Smoking cessation: Percentage of people with hypertension who smoke who have had an recent cessation intervention 

Safe and Effective Prescribing: Opioids 

  • Opioid prescription: Number of patients 18+ who received an opioid prescription in the last six months 

  • Opioid-benzodiazepine co-prescription: Number of patients 18+ receiving both opioid and benzodiazepine prescriptions (or z-drug) prescriptions over the last 6 months 

  • Opioid agonist treatment: Number of patients 18+ who are prescribed either methadone or buprenorphine-naloxone in the last 6 months 

Safe and Effective Prescribing: Other medications 

  • Benzodiazepines in the elderly: Percent of patients age 66+ who received a prescription for a benzodiazepine or z-drug in the last 6 months 

  • Antibiotics: Percentage of patients receiving oral antibiotic prescriptions over the last six months 

  • Polypharmacy: Percentage of patients age 50+ who have 5 or more prescriptions over the last 12 months 

Immunization 

  • Infant vaccination: Percentage of patients aged 25-48 months who have received all infant vaccines required by 24 months 

  • Childhood vaccination: Percentage of patients aged 6-7 years who have received all of their vaccinations required by age 6 years 

  • Shingles vaccine: Percentage of patients age 65+ who have received any two shingles vaccinations 

  • Pneumococcal vaccine: Percentage of patients age 65+ who have received a pneumococcal vaccination 

Smoking 

  • Smoking status, all patients: Percentage of patients 18+ by smoking status (yes, no, unknown) 

  • Smoking cessation, all patients: Percentage of patients who smoke who have had an recent cessation intervention 

  • Smoking status among patients with chronic conditions: Diabetes, hypertension, and COPD 

  • Smoking cessation among patients with chronic conditions: Diabetes, hypertension, and COPD 

Note: Equity stratifications (e.g., by age and neighborhood income quintile) are included for select quality measures.