PEER
Empowering Family Physicians and Primary Care Through Evidence
Through a joint collaboration between a small group of physicians from the University of Alberta in 2009, a full interdisciplinary group of pharmacists, nurses, and family physicians, the ACFP and the Patients Experience Evidence Research (PEER) developed an award-winning Evidence & CPD program that aimed to inspire and equip clinicians to use the best evidence for shared-informed decision making with their patients.
The Evidence & CPD program was a physician-led and taught education project that is free from industry bias and based on the best available evidence. The absence of industry funding or participation in the planning and program development was one of the distinguishing factors of the Evidence & CPD program.
PEER-produced materials are trusted resources that family physicians and primary care practitioners can count on to be relevant, pragmatic, and applicable.
The ACFP’s Evidence and CPD program started in 2009 with the introduction of Tools for Practice. The Tools for Practice was a certified library on ACFP’s GoMainpro learning platform. Revenue from GoMainpro helped subsidize the entire program.
In late 2010, the Evidence and CPD Roadshows were introduced to take mini-conferences to rural communities and Primary Care Networks (PCN) around Alberta.
To help maintain a growing academic detailing program, the Best Practice Support Visits became part of the program in 2011.
Finally, in 2012, the first Practical Evidence for Informed Practice Conference (a large, Alberta-based two-day CPD event) was created. Together, these four components form a comprehensive family physician-run continuing professional development program for an entire province.
The program is focused on evidence-based practice with all content derived from the highest-level research available.
While topics within the program are primarily targeted to practising family physicians, attendance and involvement of team or network members is also encouraged.
PEER consists of a group of practising family physicians and allied health care practitioners with over 30 years in providing patient care in both rural and urban practice settings. They recognize the learning needs of practising family physicians (and their teams) and provide “education by primary care for primary care.”
The ACFP is proud to support our collaboration and partnership with PEER.
For more information regarding PEER visit: www.peerevidence.ca
PEER evolved from the desire of a small group of family physicians to provide optimal health care in the context of Patient preferences and values, physician Experience and scientific Evidence from relevant Research reflecting patient-oriented outcomes.
The team of primary care providers grew and now forms the evidence-based medicine (EBM) team in the Department of Family Medicine. The PEER team consists of Dr. Mike Allan, Dr. Tina Korownyk, Dr. Mike Kolber, Dr. Scott Garrison, Dr. Adrienne Lindblad (PharmD), Nikita McEwan, Dr. Joey Ton (PharmD), Danielle Perry, and Dr. James McCormack (PharmD) of UBC.
