Sustainability: QoF and Resource Management
Practical examples of how you can make patient access to research sustainable
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Research activity and managing resources
Research activity and managing resources
All research must be conducted by the GP in the practice... wrong!
This is a common misconception of research in primary care. In fact, in most cases the actual time required of a GP is fairly minimal e.g. screening patient lists for eligibility and / or acting as a Principal Investigator for safety screening/reporting at the practice.
A lot of the day to day research activity can be managed by other skilled team members such as administrators, health care assistants, paramedics, practice nurses and operational/practice managers.
Primary care research contribution to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF)
Primary care research contribution to the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF)
Site based studies, where the research activity is based at the practice (patient assessments/tests etc) either with a practice nurse / health care assistant or clinical research nurse delegated to deliver these tasks can boost prevalence scores.
Research assessments often involve obtaining data such as:
Height
Weight
BMI
Smoking status
Alcohol status
Blood Pressure
COPD annual review information
When entering patient data to the online case report forms required for the research study, the health care professional can simultaneously update the patients’ medical records. Our research nurses are trained to enter codes.
Acting as a Patient Identification Centre for studies that are not blinded to results can also contribute. Some research sites will send a copy of any assessment results to the named GP; any new diagnoses or results are then entered onto the patient system.
The NIHR offers a wide variety of studies covering multiple clinical areas such as COPD, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, obesity, mental health, osteoporosis and dementia etc.
The slideshow below showcases examples of recent studies which have contributed towards QoF alongside information about how they have impacted one of our practices
How to maximise income from QOF:
How to maximise income from QOF:
Participate in site-based studies which cover the most recent QOF domains and target the right population. Some studies offer the practices access to new technologies such as FeNO testing kits (recommended by NICE to help confirm asthma diagnosis) for example.
Train your own research nurse or health care assistant to enter research data simultaneously to the patient system.
If you do not have the capacity to train your own research nurse or HCA for the purposes of research activity as per protocol, participate in studies that offer RRDN research nurse support. Our research nurses are trained to enter clinical coding for research and this will help to boost your QOF prevalence.
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