A strong primary care system is essential for effective chronic disease management and prevention, but the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in dramatic changes across the healthcare system. The RIPPLE-C project identifies areas of primary care that were, and continue to be, affected by the pandemic to help focus support and attention for recovery.
RIPPLE-C is investigating:
- Changes in indicators of primary care performances across three domains:
- Access to care
- Comprehensiveness of care
- Appropriateness of care
- Patient perspectives on how the pandemic affected their medical care and the decisions they made when seeking out care
- Whether the ongoing treatment and monitoring of patients with chronic and risk factor conditions was maintained over the course of the pandemic
RIPPLE-C is a mixed methods study conducted in two concurrent phases. Results from each phase are used to help interpret results and discussion points of both studies.
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Phase 1: Retrospective Cohort Study
In this phase, we use de-identified electronic medical data from a primary care research database (CPCSSN) that includes data from nearly 2 million participants nationwide. This phase compares chronic disease management before and during the pandemic.
Phase 2: Qualitative Study
For this phase, we explore patient perspectives on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected their experiences with primary care. We recruited participants with the following characteristics:
- Aged 50+
- With type 2 diabetes
We interviewed participants to learn about their experiences navigating care for chronic conditions and whether there are any challenges or changes to their healthcare.
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RIPPLE-C Team Members
- Michelle Howard, Co-Principal Investigator
- Dee Mangin, Co-Principal Investigator
- Meredith Vanstone
- Shuaib Hafid
- Karla Freeman
- Andrea Carruthers
- Jennifer Lawson
- Rebecca Clark
- Kris Aubrey-Bassler, Memorial University
- Marie-Therese Lussier, University of Montreal
- Kathryn Nicholson, Western University
- Neil Drummond, University of Alberta
- John Queenan, Queen’s University
- Amanda Ramdyal, McMaster University