GPAC: Guidelines and Protocols Advisory Committee

Mandate

The Guidelines and Protocols Advisory Committee (GPAC) is established under Section 5(1) (o) of the Medicare Protection Act (MPA) as an advisory committee to the Medical Services Commission (MSC). Sections 24(1) and 37 (5) of the MPA provides the authority for the Commission to prepare guidelines for practitioners.

Joint responsibility for developing guidelines to support the effective utilization of medical services is mandated in the 2007 Physician Master Agreement (PMA) Article 11.4 between the Ministry of Health Services (MOHS) and the British Columbia Medical Association (BCMA).

The PMA also requires GPAC to develop strategies for the adoption by all affected parties of guidelines and protocols once they are approved.

The mandate of GPAC is to support the effective utilization of medical services, principally through guidelines and protocols. The overall goal is to maintain or improve the quality of medical care, while making optimal use of medical resources.

Fiscal Year 2008/2009 Strategies and Objectives

As a key strategy in FY 2008/09, GPAC will actively engage new partnerships across the broader medical community in the collaborative development of patient-focused clinical practice guidelines. Increasingly, organizations are approaching GPAC to work collaboratively in the development of guidelines and subsequent dissemination to practitioners and patient populations.

GPAC will be placing increased emphasis on the promotion of these guidelines as a distinct strategy, both through the utilization of new technologies such as Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) and promotion of the guidelines at Continuing Medical Education (CME) events and presentations to medical students and residents.

These two strategies build upon the Commission’s key priority of pursuing collaborative opportunities with physicians to promote use of the guidelines and protocols. GPAC will continue previous initiatives to measure and evaluate its success in achieving this goal.

The demand for new guidelines in FY2008/09 will exceed available resources and, accordingly, GPAC must identify new sources for guidelines. For example, GPAC is collaborating with the Family Practice Oncology Network in the development of guidelines for primary care physicians on cancer care.

While expanding its partnerships in the development of new guidelines and protocols, GPAC will also not lose sight of the necessity to maintain the relevancy and accuracy of the existing 50+ guidelines. A system of guideline renewal has been introduced that will ensure the guidelines reflect the most recent literature and scientific evidence.

Annual Objectives for FY 2008/09 include:

Objective 1:
Engage partner organizations in the collaborative development of patient-focused clinical practice guidelines, specifically in the areas of Emergency Department protocols, child health, palliative care, and treatment of non-cancer chronic pain.

Objective 2:
Revise and update existing guidelines, with the target of renewing all guidelines within three to five years of their effective date, or less as necessitated by medical developments.

Objective 3:
Promote the increased uptake and usage of guidelines and protocols through the provision of the guidelines in PDA format, by enhancing the functionality of the guidelines web site, and by employing software and statistical tracking to evaluate and measure success in achieving this objective.

Objective 4:
Continue to engage partners within the broader medical community through promotion of the guidelines at Continuing Medical Education (CME) events and presentations on the guidelines to medical students and residents.

Disclaimer

The Clinical Practice Guidelines (the "Guidelines") have been developed by the Guidelines and Protocols Advisory Committee on behalf of the Medical Services Commission. The Guidelines are intended to give an understanding of a clinical problem, and outline one or more preferred approaches to the investigation and management of the problem. The Guidelines are not intended as a substitute for the advice or professional judgment of a health care professional, nor are they intended to be the only approach to the management of clinical problems.

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