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Getting a Grip on Arthritis: A National Primary Health Care Community Initiative

Getting a Grip on Arthritis (Prendre en main l’arthrite) is a national program to improve the ability of primary health care providers and people with arthritis to manage their disease. The program is funded through Health Canada’s Primary Health Care Transition Fund.

The program will target health care providers at primary health care organizations across Canada. Primary health care providers include doctors, nurses, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and other healthcare professionals who treat or care for people with arthritis. The program focuses on osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis, a more serious and complex form of the disease. It emphasizes arthritis prevention, early detection, local collaborative care, self-management, and timely referral to specialized care when needed.

The Getting a Grip on Arthritis program includes five components:

  1. Assessing the learning needs of primary health care providers and their patients about arthritis. Assessments of community resources for people with arthritis will also be done.
  2. Updating and adapting the clinical practice guidelines for arthritis. This includes producing educational material for primary health care providers and their patients to help in the diagnosis and treatment of arthritis.
  3. Thirty training workshops for primary health care providers to learn more about the diagnosis and treatment of arthritis, offered in regions across Canada.
  4. Methods for reinforcing that training, through newsletters, follow-up workshops and other means.
  5. Ongoing evaluation of the program and its objectives through surveys and interviews with primary health care providers and their patients.

The Arthritis Society and Dr. Mary Bell, rheumatologist from Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, are co-applicants on this grant. Sydney Lineker is the director of the project and Dr. Bell is the scientific advisor. Dr. Jennifer Boyle from ACREU is coordinating the evaluation of the project.

Getting a Grip on Arthritis is funded until September 2007. The program is a joint initiative involving The Arthritis Society and the following partners:

 
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