Arising out of the 2003 Master Agreement, the Toward Optimized Practice (TOP) program succeeds the former Alberta Clinical Practice Guidelines program, and maintains and distributes Alberta Clinical Practice Guidelines. TOP is a health quality improvement initiative that fits within the broader health system focus on quality and complements other strategies such as Primary Care Initiative and the Physician Office System Program.
The TOP program supports physician practices, and the teams they work with, by fostering the use of evidence-based best practices and quality initiatives in medical care in Alberta. The program offers a variety of tools and services to help physicians and their colleagues meet the challenge of keeping practices current in an environment of continually emerging evidence.
The program is overseen by representatives from each of the four sponsoring bodies: