Manitoba Health
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Evaluation
What is the Evaluation Plan?
The PIN Evaluation Plan was developed to measure the impact of the Physician Integrated Network (PIN) initiative on patient care and provider satisfaction with reference to the identified PIN objectives within the context of primary care renewal in Manitoba and Canada. The Evaluation Plan was developed in collaboration with the PIN Team and Dr. Alan Katz of the Department of Family Medicine, University of Manitoba.
The Evaluation Plan is linked to the PIN objectives:
- Improving access evaluated by a patient survey.
- Improving provider work life evaluated by a provider survey.
- Demonstration of high quality primary care evaluated by tracking quality process indicators (CIHI primary care indicators) through EMR data.
- Improving access to and use of information evaluated through all of the above.
Qualitative interviews with providers before and after the implementation of PIN and with patients after implementation will be used to help guide the future direction of the initiative.
The Phase 1 Evaluation was completed by Prairie Research Associates (PRA), Inc.
View the Phase 1 Evaluation Report here 
The pre-Phase 2 patient survey report is available here
How were indicators chosen for the Evaluation Plan?
The indicators included in the Evaluation Plan are derived from two sources: the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) and the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP).
Where possible, they have been derived from the Primary Health Care Indicator Development Project completed by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in March 2006 . The Primary Care Indicator Development Project developed indicators to measure primary care reform as defined by the primary health care transition fund, and in many cases, also meet the criteria of the Manitoba Physician Integrated Network initiative. The CIHI project identified over one hundred and five (105) indicators. While some of these indicators are specific to individual clinics and thus relevant to this initiative, other indicators are only relevant at a regional or systemic level or are not relevant to the objectives of the PIN initiative.
These indicators are supplemented by indicators developed in the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) report titled: "Profiling Primary Care Practice in Manitoba" by Norman Frohlich, Alan Katz, Carolyn De Coster, Natalia Dik, Ruth-Ann Soodeen, Diane Watson and Bogdan Bogdanovic.
View Profiling Primary Care Practice in Manitoba here
The latter group of indicators will be further developed during Phase 2 as part of the Indicator Development Department Deliverable housed within Manitoba Health.
The indicators selected for the Evaluation Plan are practice indicators, not outcome indicators.
Categories of Indicators:
- Health Risk Identification (e.g. tobacco use) for all core patients
- Preventive Screening (e.g. fecal occult blood test) for all appropriate patients (generally age/gender-based)
- Chronic disease management (diabetes, hypertension, coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, asthma)
Click here to learn more about practice indicators.
PIN Advisory Committee
The PIN initiative has evolved under the guidance of an advisory committee with representation from the University of Manitoba; the Colleges of Registered Nurses and Physicians & Surgeons of Manitoba; the Manitoba Medical Association; the Winnipeg and Assiniboine Regional Health Authorities and other key primary care stakeholders.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis
PIN has also explored the evidence supporting cost-effectiveness for primary care services that align with several of the PIN indicators. These findings are described in the report: Estimating the Cost-Effectiveness of Evidence-Informed Primary Care.
PIN Baseline Evaluation: Linking Electronic Records and Administrative Data
As part of the PIN Evaluation Plan, the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP) compared Electronic Medical Record (EMR) data collected by PIN to the data contained within the Population Health Research Data Repository (Repository) housed at the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy (MCHP). The study posed two questions: how comparable are the EMR and administrative data for data fields that are common to both data sources, and what primary care indicators are feasible to track using administrative data? The results are included in the report: PIN Baseline Evaluation: Linking Electronic Records and Administrative Data .
