Fracture Prevention
One priority area of the Ontario Osteoporosis Strategy is on Fracture Prevention. We are working to reduce the risk of hip and other osteoporotic fractures by:
-Identifying at-risk patients in appropriate acute, primary care, long-term care and community settings to facilitate their access to appropriate diagnostic testing, fracture risk assessment, and osteoporosis care.
-Working with primary care practitioners, to set up pro-active screening, referral pathways, and risk assessment processes within their practice to reduce the risk of fractures.
-Develop and promote clinical and residential assessment tools and protocols for Long Term care and other primary care settings.
Professional Education and Outreach
Professional education and outreach are critical to the success of the Strategy. Our goal with education and outreach is to increase evidence-informed practice by healthcare professionals. To achieve this goal we are:
-Developing educational tools, programs and resources for health professionals that help them apply and maintain best practices in the prevention, appropriate diagnostic and fracture risk assessment tools, treatment, and management of osteoporotic fractures.
-Dissemination of Bone Mineral Density tools for primary care, fracture prevention guidelines for Long-term care and osteoporosis management as well as EMR based assessment and tracking tools to facilitate osteoporosis management in various settings.
Patient Education and Self-Management
Our objective is to improve patients (and their family and informal care providers) understanding and management of their fracture risk. While promoting and facilitating at-risk patients opportunities for learning and applying self-management skills necessary to optimally benefit from tools, programs, and resources. We do this by:
-Providing and improving access to educational materials and self-management tools and resources for patients and caregivers.
-Enhance community referral partnerships for community-based support services for osteoporosis.
Evaluation and Partnerships
The success of the strategy is dependent on partnerships, accountability and strengthen the internal and external relations to ensure transparent, and sustainable growth. In order to demonstrate our commitment to improving quality of care for patients with osteoporotic fractures regular reporting and evaluation strategies are put in place with our internal and external stakeholders.
