Become a NAPCReN Member

The Northern Alberta Primary Care Learning & Research Network (NAPCReN) is a family physician and multidisciplinary collaboration of researchers and clinicians in primary care. We are working together to improve practice by performing ongoing quality improvement and addressing questions that arise from our clinical practice.

NAPCReN is one of the primary care research networks from across Canada that contributes data to the Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) which is a multi-disease electronic medical record-based surveillance system in Canada. CPCSSN collects data on chronic diseases to help understand disease epidemiology in primary care contexts and improve patient outcomes and health system processes. This information is shared with governments, strategic care networks, healthcare practitioners and researchers.

Primary care providers who provide data to NAPCReN/CPCSSN will contribute to a dynamic research initiative, which has research ethics board approval and adheres to stringent privacy guidelines.

Why should I contribute my EMR DATA to NAPCReN/CPCSSN?

NAPCReN/CPCSSN cleans and structures your EMR data which can then be used to evaluate, inform and improve your practice. Through validated algorithms, your EMR data can correctly identify patients with chronic conditions which then can be used for quality improvement and approved research projects. Individualized feedback reports can inform how you are managing chronic conditions in your practice.

What about privacy and security?

No data identifying patients or their care providers will be part of the regional or national databases. Organizational, physical, and technological safeguards are implemented to ensure that privacy is protected. Medical information is extracted, de-identified and then sent to a server where it remains safely stored in a highly secure facility.

What is my time commitment?

Only the time it takes to read and sign consent and data sharing agreements.

What EMRs can participate?

·       Med Access

·       Practice Solutions

·       Healthquest

·       Accuro

Types of Membership

NAPCReN offers two types of membership.

Data Contributing Membership - Provide de-identified data to NAPCReN/CPCSSN.

Non-Data Contributing Membership - Become a non-data contributing member to receive emails regarding primary care research projects.