Dr. Daniel Dodek is a full-service family physician, who writes a physician wellness column for the Vancouver Division of Family Practice, and is on the St. Paul’s Hospital CME Organizing Committee.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) is both highly treatable and has significantly better outcomes when detected early (BC Cancer, BC Guidelines). It is the 2nd leading cause of death from cancer in men and the 3rd leading cause of death from cancer in women (Canadian Cancer Society). Dr. Michael Stuckey’s HDC Bright Spot, which focused on screening eligible patients for CRC, has resonated with family physicians and primary care nurse practitioners across the province.
After reviewing Dr. Stuckey’s Bright Spot with David Chan, HDC Clinical Services Manager, in March 2024, Dr. Daniel Dodek was also inspired to screen more of his eligible patients for CRC.
“This project highlighted for me the profound beauty of longitudinal relationships in family medicine. While the data from my quality improvement work appear as numbers—rates, percentages, outcomes—each one represents a real person.”- Dr. Daniel Dodek
David contacted Darren Hildebrand, PSP Practice Improvement Coach, and they scheduled meetings with Dr. Dodek and Wil Schur, Health Technology Coach, to formulate an approach. Health Technology Coaches 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. Health Technology Coaches can help with creating queries to support prevention and screening based on the lifetime prevention schedule, identifying patients that are due or overdue for their screening supporting a proactive approach.
“Working with Dr Dodek we leveraged the query created for OSCAR to find patients that were due for their FIT testing. This query finds any patients that have not had a FIT test within 2 years or a colonoscopy within 10 years.” – Wil Schur, Health Technology Coach
After reviewing the available data, the PSP and HDC devised a plan that would assist Dr Dodek with his project and not overburden him and his team.
“The collaboration between Dr. Dodek, the Health Data Coalition (HDC) and the Practice Support Program (PSP) through Doctors of BC was immediately effective in identifying eligible patients for CRC screening.” – Darren Hildebrand, Practice Improvement Coach
Wil and Darren were able to validate the CRC screening data in Dr. Dodek’s OSCAR Pro EMR and generate a list of patients who were eligible but had not yet undergone screening. Dr. Dodek worked with a Registered Nurse (RN) in his clinic, contacted patients on the list, and encouraged them to get screened.
The results in Dr. Dodek’s Colorectal Cancer Screening Measure in HDC Discover are impressive:
Over the course of a year, Dr. Dodek and his RN successfully encouraged 65 additional patients to undergo CRC.
Dr. Dodek and his team were provided compensation for this practice improvement project, as supported by PSP. The project was a success, as shown by the HDC Discover data, and this creates a model for other physicians to consider as they seek to understand how practice reflection can improve their patients’ health outcomes.
“Every colonoscopy completed, and each polyp removed is not just a metric, but a moment of potential cancer prevented, a life potentially extended. Because I’ve known many of these patients for years, these are not anonymous statistics. They are individuals whose stories I know, whose families I’ve met, whose trust I’ve earned. That continuity of care brings deep meaning and joy to my work.“
Dr. Daniel Dodek,
Family Physician
Interested in reviewing your Colorectal Cancer Screening rates within HDC Discover and identifying more eligible patients for screening?
Contact an HDC Clinical Services Manager at info@hdcbc.ca to learn more.