Primary Care Clinician Educational Series

This free self-learning series from the DFCM is designed to provide primary care clinicians with the knowledge and skills to lead quality improvement work in their practice.

There are nine e-modules that cover a range of topics from the Model for Improvement to foundational concepts for health system change including patient engagement, equity, patient safety, and leading change. The final module describes how the series can support family physicians to complete their QI requirements for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

The modules are interactive and include videos, practical resources and examples of real-world application as well as links to journal articles, reports, and websites. The series is designed both as a continuous learning experience and as a resource that users can refer back to as needed. It can be done from start to finish or users can focus on the modules that are most relevant to them.

This 1-credit per hour Self-Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 6 Mainpro⁺ credits.

Improving quality in primary care: an educational series for primary care clinicians

Primary care clinician series overview Preview the modules

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This educational material may be reproduced with the mutual understanding that materials and resources are for the sole purpose of family medicine resident/faculty education and with attribution provided according to the citation below. For all other uses, permission must be acquired from DFCM: please contact dfcm.quality@utoronto.ca.

Learning Objectives

Designed to contribute to the goal of “Building Capability to Improve Quality in Primary Care”, the overall learning objectives of our educational series for primary care clinicians are to:

Demonstrate a commitment to improving quality for patients from a team, organization and system perspective.
Engage in collaborative learning to continuously improve personal practice and contribute to collective improvements in practice.
Advance quality care through collaboration and the engagement of others to improve quality at all levels of the health care system.
Apply the science of improvement, incorporating various forms of data, to improve practice effectiveness and the quality of care with a focus on improved equity, safety, and patient engagement.

Citations & Acknowledgements

Citation: Susanna Fung, Trish O’Brien, Tara Kiran. Improving quality in primary care: an educational series for primary care clinicians. Quality and Innovation Program, Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto; Toronto, Canada, 2022.

Acknowledgement: Thank you to Mr. Brian Da Silva & Ms. Olivia Neale for curriculum design and presentation guidance; to Ms. Dana Arafeh, Ms. Laura Desveaux, Dr. Noah Ivers, Dr. Ritika Goel, Dr. Thuynga Pham, Dr. John Maxted, and Dr. Margarita Lam-Antoniades for guidance on selecting and integrating content and references for the patient engagement, measurement, improving equity and patient safety modules; and to Ms. Lorri Zager for contributions to curriculum design and content curation. Thank you to the Quality Improvement Program Directors at our DFCM academic sites who have informed the content and delivery of QI education over the years. Finally, we would like to provide a special thank you to the late Dr. Philip Ellison whose leadership enabled the design, development and implementation of the inaugural DCFCM quality improvement curriculum for family medicine post-graduate learners in 2011.