TOP's mission is to foster a culture of continuous quality improvement among Alberta physicians and the teams with whom they work.

Toward Optimized Practice (TOP) helps Alberta physicians implement clinical practice improvements into their clinics using measurement and evidence with the goal of improving both patient care and clinical management.

TOP provides (at no cost to the physician):

Informed Practice
TOP’s Medical Director, Dr. Mike Allan, in association with the Department of Family Medicine, University of Alberta Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, leads the Informed Practice program working to enhance the use of evidence and quality in primary care. Informed Practice includes:

HSIA
The Health Screen in ACT10N campaign aims to improve the early detection of illness in patients through consistent screening, demonstrating how a checklist can improve the reliability with which physicians consider/conduct/order a set of screening maneuvers in accordance with clinical practice guidelines. Alberta primary care physicians and their teams are enrolling in the health screen campaign to determine if their use of a checklist increases the reliability with which they screen their patients. Studies indicate that using a checklist can improve completion of screening by 20% and Alberta’s early results are promising.
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AIM
AIM is a made in Alberta program working to eliminate delays in the health care system using principles that help match supply and demand. The goal of AIM is for each patient to see their own physician without a wait. Through improvement processes and principles, and using a collaborative model of learning, wait times and delays can be improved or eliminated.

Partnering with the Primary Care Networks, the Primary Care Initiative, Alberta Health Services, and the Alberta Medical Association, TOP helps bring AIM principles to Alberta physicians and their teams.