FPSC is accepting applications for medical office staff to take the Panel Management for Family Practice program through the University of Fraser Valley. We are offering a fall cohort in 2024. The program consists of five modules with a final quality improvement project implemented in-practice.
Updated February 3, 2025
Panel management is a process of proactively managing a defined population of patients, using EMR (electronic medical record) data to identify and respond to patients’ chronic and preventative care needs. The concept is simple: better information about patients leads to better care for patients.
The phases of panel management are a framework designed to support physicians in providing longitudinal, proactive care to patients. An accurate panel means physicians can easily track billings, improve workflows, improve communications with patients, and maintain a better work-life balance.
Panel management helps physicians:
Improve patient care and workflow efficiency through improve EMR processes.
Identify resource needs to help family doctors care for their patients.
Inform and plan proactive and preventative care.
Panel management has three phases:
Empanelment assigns patients to individual primary care providers. Having an accurate list of active patients for each provider improves continuity of care and enables population-based care.
Panel clean-up involves creating registries that accurately reflect all patients within the panel who have a specific diagnosis and are properly coded with the correct ICD-9 code.
Panel optimization involves using updated data to implement proactive care goals using decision support tools in the EMR.
Practice support coaches can create and support manageable steps to help physicians optimize their EMR data as they work through the phases of panel management.
Contact your practice support coach, or email us at psp@doctorsofbc.ca, or submit a service request here and get started.
Each phase could take up to 15 hours of physician or staff time to complete. The total time commitment may be up to 12 months.
For resources to develop and submit your list of Empanelled Patients to the Provincial Attachment System (PAS) Panel Registry, click here. These resources are intended to support longitudinal physicians on the LFP Payment Model, fee-for-service, and Alternative Payment models..
Panel Management Small Group Learning Sessions
These sessions provide a group setting where PSP Practice Improvement Coaches lead family physicians through the phases of panel management. EMR-specific sessions will be offered for Oscar, TELUS MedAccess, Intrahealth Profile, and MOIS.
Panel Management for Family Practice program through the University of the Fraser Valley
FPSC offers medical office staff the opportunity to take this program, which consists of seven modules with a final capstone quality improvement project implemented in-practice. The program offers practical, skills-based training designed to meet the competencies of a panel manager including; basics of the patient medical home and primary care network, empanelment, registry-based care, and pro-active and preventative care.
The program runs two cohorts per year with start dates in September and January. For more information, email us at psp@doctorsofbc.ca.
FPSC is currently not accepting applications for medical office staff to take the Panel Management for Family Practice program through the University of Fraser Valley. Our next cohort dates will be announced in Fall 2025. The program consists of five modules with a final quality improvement project implemented in-practice. It offers practical, skills-based training designed to meet the competencies of a panel manager, including basics of the patient medical home and primary care network, empanelment, registry-based care, and proactive and preventative care.
The Practice Support Program (PSP) is launching a new service offering focused on supporting family physicians through the phases of panel management in a group setting. These sessions will be specific to your EMR platform and teach the essentials needed to:
With your practice team’s specific needs and goals in mind, our practice improvement coaches are available to help clarify roles, establish structures, and make lasting improvements in areas like health technology, panel management, and team-based care. In addition to our team of skilled coaches, peer mentors bring clinical expertise and their direct experience to the support we provide. Physician and medical office assistant (MOA) peer mentors work with our coaches to provide one-to-one support directly in doctors' practices and co-facilitate learning opportunities.
If you’re thinking about ways to optimize your practice, our practice support team can help you get started. We use a quality improvement (QI) approach that’s flexible and tailored to your practice. We focus on:
Within our team, coaches with a specialized skill set and focus on team-based care (TBC) work with peers across the province to provide additional supports in the areas of leadership, conflict resolution, role clarity, communication, and team development. Coaches can also help primary care networks (PCNs) plan for team-based care and the impacts on physicians and teams in their community.
Designed for primary care teams in the process of implementing or already working in a team-based care environment, our team-based care learning series offers teams an opportunity to come together with our coaching support as you work toward becoming a high functioning team. Session order is flexible and designed to meet the needs of teams as you work to implement team-based care.
Click here to read about more team-based care supports.
Use our patient experience tool to survey patients about their experiences and interactions with your family practice on topics such as wait times, office hours, coordination of care, and cultural sensitivity. Clinics can send the survey to patients electronically (email or SMS), or ask patients to complete it on tablets provided by FPSC's practice support program. Tablets typically rotate between participating clinics every six to eight months but can be available for longer periods for practices who choose to continuously survey their patients.
Practice team members access responses in real-time using an easy-to-use, web-based dashboard. Patient responses are anonymous, and are available only when a minimum of five responses per question are received. The secure platform automatically anonymizes and randomizes the responses upon receipt before the data is reported in the dashboard.
Data from the patient experience tool can inform your practice’s quality improvement activities. Our practice improvement coaches help physicians and teams to begin surveying patients, reviewing survey data, and implementing practice improvements. Physicians can use the data to inform quality improvement activities in practice. Practices can opt to share aggregated data with their local division.
The patient voice can contribute to a family practice’s work to adopt the attributes of a patient medical home and to determine readiness to participate in a primary care network.
To get started, complete this online form. A PSP team member will connect with you to coordinate a time to deliver and set up the tablet and survey.
To help doctors and practice teams stay up-to-date on information and best practices in key areas of clinical and practice management, we offer a variety of flexible, evidence-based, learning opportunities. Our practice improvement coaches support doctors and teams to apply learnings and put theory to practice, paving the way for positive, sustainable change.
Physician and medical office assistant (MOA) peer mentors work with our coaches to provide one-to-one support directly in your practice and co-facilitate learning opportunities, lending their experience and unique perspective to the support we provide. Whether you already know what kind of support you are looking for or want to learn more about how your practice might benefit, our team can help you.
If you're interested in connecting with a peer mentor to support your practice, please submit a service request here.
If you're interested in getting involved as a peer mentor, we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to peermentors@doctorsofbc.ca to get involved.
As leaders and experts in their fields, Peer Mentors can further develop leadership, coaching, and facilitation skills through their participation in our Peer Mentor Network. If you're interested in getting involved as a peer mentor, we would love to hear from you. Please reach out to peermentors@doctorsofbc.ca to learn more.
In partnership with the Doctors Technology Office, we offer a range of EMR services that help physicians and practice teams use their EMRs (electronic medical records) more effectively for both foundational and quality improvement activities. Our team offers expertise across various EMRs, leveraging skills from physician and medical office assistant (MOA) peer mentors to provide the support you need to help the benefits of health technology.
Connect with one of our skilled coaches, a physician, or MOA peer mentor with expertise in your EMR or virtual care platform for support specific to your individual needs. We can help you find resources, get connected with the Doctors Technology Office, or get involved in a group learning session with your peers.
We offer tailored group learning opportunities to enable doctors and MOAs who use the same EMR or health technology platform to come together to work toward improving their proficiency. Sessions may focus on EMR workflow, access and efficiency, panel management, and practice improvement activities. To get involved, contact us at psp@doctorsofbc.ca, or submit a service request here.
Read more: Optimize your practice
We work in partnership with the Doctors Technology Office to support physicians in implementing and enhancing their use of health technology platforms, like EMR and other integrated care programs, that improve workflow and efficiency while preserving quality, equity, privacy, and cultural safety.
Our team can help you access and use tools embedded in your EMR to improve clinical documentation and simplify practice workflows. We can help doctors and their teams use tools within their EMR to apply learnings from clinical educational sessions and to identify and care for patients with underdiagnosed chronic conditions by:
Linking to patient registries to simplify scheduling of recall appointments and periodic testing.
Completing patient questionnaires directly in EMRs.
Accessing patient handouts.
To support doctors in the phases of panel management and other clinical quality improvement activities that PSP supports, our team has worked with many EMRs across the province to embed resources directly into EMRs. The Doctors Technology Office offers resources and guides to EMRs and EMR data migrations.
Our team can also help you get connected with other health technology initiatives around the province such as Pathways, the Health Data Coalition, and Up-to-Date. Let us know if you're interested.
Our team can help community-based primary care teams:
Deliver virtual care in a way that emphasizes the patient-doctor relationship.
Support optimal patient care through the adoption of full-spectrum virtual care, alongside in-person appointments.
Identify opportunities to integrate virtual care into your practice workflow in a way that is both sustainable and effective.
Recruiting coaches at Doctors of BC for the GPSC Practice Support Program (PSP) is now underway with positions slated to be filled by early fall 2022. It’s the next phase of transitioning PSP service delivery from the health authorities into one organization, an undertaking announced in fall 2021.
Latest update: May 31, 2022
Recruiting coaches at Doctors of BC for the GPSC Practice Support Program (PSP) is now underway with positions slated to be filled by early fall 2022. For more information read: “Update: Practice Support Program.”
New Westminster-based Dr John Yap remembers the exact date he and his four colleagues knew the way they provide care was about to change dramatically: Friday, March 13.
“We got official word to consider shifting to virtual care to help curtail COVID-19,” said Dr Yap. “The following Monday, we showed up to work as usual but as patients started cancelling their appointments, we realized we had to adapt, and quickly.”
The Practice Support Program (PSP), funded by Doctors of BC and the BC Government through the General Practice Services Committee (GPSC), provides a range of activities and supports to help physicians and medical office assistants (MOAs) build and enhance their practices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Compensation and certification is available for your practice improvement activities supported by FPSC's practice support program. Please see below for details and eligibility:
Quality improvement -- Physicians and eligible team members who make practice improvements when working with our practice support team using a quality improvement approach are eligible for compensation and certification.
Panel management -- In addition to compensation for panel management through quality improvement activities with the practice support program, family physicians working with a coach from FPSC's practice support program can receive a bonus payment upon completion of all phases of panel management. Click here for more information.
We provide compensation and Mainpro+ credits to doctors and eligible team members who make practice improvements when working with our practice support team using our quality improvement approach. Eligible members of the practice team include medical office assistants (MOAs), interdisciplinary team members in private practice, and other team members employed by a family physician practice. Team members who are employed or compensated by a health authority are not eligible.
Quality improvement activities work to achieve a clear and measurable goal. An example is proactive care goals for recalling patients with diabetes for A1c testing. Other quality improvement activities include improving office flow for patient visits or focusing on team communication within the practice.
Practice support is available for other aspects of your practice; however, these activities might not be eligible for compensation. Examples include basic EMR (electronic medical record) or virtual care platform training and human resource tasks related to hiring, administrative reporting, or hardware/software updates. Learning opportunities outside of FPSC's practice support program (such as CME (continuing medical education) sessions, etc.) are not certified or compensated. Our team can help connect physicians to additional resources that might be available from other provincial or community partners.
Family doctors and each eligible practice team member can receive payment for participating in quality improvement activities for up to 15 hours total per QI cycle. Family doctors are compensated at the JCC sessional rate at the time of the quality improvement activity.
Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of British Columbia (NNPBC) provides compensation to nurse practitioners (NPs) who are accessing our team’s support. For more information, please visit https://www.nnpbc.com/np-content/index.php/quality-improvement-initiatives/.
This 3 credits-per-hour group learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 45 Mainpro+ credits.
For more information about eligibility requirements for our compensation and certification, please contact FPSC's practice support program at psp@doctorsofbc.ca.