Quality assessment model of software for managing family medicine practice — Methodology and basic results

Abstract

Family medicine practices form the basis of the Croatian health system. They solve the largest number of health problems and collect the most health data with the lowest operational cost. However, the software support required for the running of these offices at the time being is still certified only based on the principal communication criteria, while all other essential functionalities are generally uneven and left to the will of the producers. It is necessary to assess the quality of this type of software. Based on previous theoretical and experimental research in this area, the initial quality assessment model consisting of six basic categories and the questionnaire by which the Croatian family physicians evaluated the quality of the functionalities applied in their software support were made. The resulting novel model is multiple validated, comprehensive and universal. The intense ergonomic orientation of the novel measurement model was particularly emphasized.

Association of Patient, Prescriber, and Region With the Initiation of First Prescription of Biologic Disease-Modifying Antirheumatic Drug Among Older Patients With Rheumatoid Arthritis and Identical Health Insurance Coverage

“…Patient demographic variables were age, sex, disease duration, geographic area of residence, distance to prescriber of each medication, and distance to nearest rheumatologist. Health care resource use was operationalized using the Johns Hopkins Adjusted Comorbidity Group version 10, rurality index (range, 0-100; 0 indicates most urban; 100, most rural), neighborhood income quintile, and marginalization index . Neighborhood income quintile was calculated using national census data to set income quintile distribution with geographic assignment based on dissemination areas containing 500 to 800 people each.…”

“…This was calculated by dividing the annual number of rheumatologist visits in each region by the annual number of patients with RA who resided in each region. Rurality and socioeconomic status of physician practices were measured using rurality score and neighborhood income quintile . We operationalized 14 geographic regions using the Local Health Integration Network, an administrative geographic stratifier for health care delivery in Ontario (eFigure 2 in the Supplement).…”

Health services use among children diagnosed with medium-chain acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiency through newborn screening: a cohort study in Ontario, Canada

“…Quintiles were based on income data from the 2006 Canadian Census at the “dissemination area” level (populations of approximately 400–700 persons), linked to the postal code of a child’s residence at the time of birth [ 26 , 27 ]. We used the Rurality Index for Ontario (RIO) to assign urban-rural status to each child’s residence at birth [ 28 ]. The RIO is based on population size, density, and travel time to high-level healthcare centres; we used a RIO score of ≥40 to define a rural community, corresponding with the cutoff used to establish rural physician eligibility [ 29 ].…”

Virtual care use among older immigrant adults in Ontario, Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic: a repeated cross-sectional analysis

“…We used the Rurality Index of Ontario (RIO)[18] to determine rurality among the study population, comparing urban (RIO score < 40) versus rural (RIO score ≥ 40) residence. The Postal Code Conversion File (PCCF) was used to convert all patient postal codes to neighborhood income quintiles.…”