David Moores

Area of Study / Keywords

Primary Healthcare Quality and Safety Quality Improvement International Comparisons

About

Abbreviated Biography

I am a family physician and Professor of Family Medicine at the University of Alberta.  My major academic/administrative portfolio is Quality Health Services Co-Lead for the Department of Family Medicine.

My medical practice is shared with eleven (11) other family physician colleagues at the MacEwan University Health Centre in Edmonton. The practice is part of the Edmonton O-day’min Primary Care Network.  I provide comprehensive primary care services four to five half days per week and provide after-hours and extended hours practice coverage one night per week and one weekend in eleven.  I provide home Palliative Care services for my own patients and at the request of the Regional Palliative Care Programme for orphaned patients. The practice is a hybrid of a conventional family practice coupled with clinical services to students and staff of MacEwan University. It is this active comprehensive clinical practice that is the foundation for my academic and professional assessment responsibilities and our abilities to teach at the undergraduate and postgraduate level.

I began my clinical practice on Baffin Island in the Eastern Arctic of Canada in 1976 where, as a family physician, I also provided GP anaesthetic services. I continue to have an interest in the challenges of rural and remote medical practice and the most appropriate education and training for this underserviced domain.  

Having successfully completed two five year terms as Department Chair at the U of A, I received an Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Career Renewal Grant to pursue research studies at the Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, in the U.K. As the Principal Investigator, I and my colleagues received a peer reviewed grant to support the Family Practice Quality and Capacity (FPQC) Study. This was the first such Canadian study to determine FP/GP perspectives on the quality and capacity issues they faced in their own practices and the system within which they worked. The FPQC study contributed to the development of Alberta’s Primary Care Initiative and the development of Primary Care Networks in Alberta.

My continuing research is focused on the quality, capacity and safety of health systems, the essential roles of comprehensive primary care and interdisciplinary professional practice in effective health service delivery, and quality, safety and quality improvement in family practice (primary care).

I have been instrumental in the co-development of the educational objectives and the teaching of the Quality and Safety in Family Practice/Primary Care Modules and Quality Improvement in the Family Medicine Residency at the University of Alberta. 

Since 2014 we require our family medicine residents to meet educational objectives in quality and safety and to develop skills in Significant Event Identification and Analysis and more recently Quality Improvement. Significant events are the primary care equivalent of critical incidents that occur in the hospital/acute care sector. Significant Events are any event thought by anyone on the team, including patients and their families, to be significant in the care of patients or the conduct of the practice.  This comprehensive description allows for more practical quality improvement initiatives at the practice level. 

I am a keen and enthusiastic teacher at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels both in terms of the conventional curriculum and my offering of electives for 1^st and 2^nd year students.

Elective Offerings                                                                                                                                                                                                                  International Comparisons of Health Systems has been the most successful 12 hour elective. It enables students to understand the basics of health systems, the criteria by which a system’s effectiveness may be judged and, working in small groups, to critically review (compare and contrast) five countries of their choosing having determined the criteria by which they’d be reviewed.                                                                                                    Fundamentals of Patient Safety and Quality Improvement is linked to the Institute for Healthcare Improvement’s Basic Certificate in Quality and Safety. We suggest that students undertake the completion of the IHI's Basic Certificate.                                                                                                    Measuring the Quality and Capacity of Medical Services introduces students to quality measures in clinical practice.

For the past twelve years I’ve been a member of the Peer and Student Support (PaSS) Group as part of our Integrated Community Clerkship (ICC). For 8-10 months of the year I provides monthly visits to teach and supervise 3^rd year medical students in the rural-based ICC in Hinton, Alberta. 

Since 2014 I have been a Peer Reviewer and Peer Visitor for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Alberta (CPSA). This involves on-site visits for physicians requesting clinical practice and organizational coaching in addition to services for physicians deemed in need of them by the CPSA. 

Since 2014 I have been a Surveyor for Accreditation Canada/Health Standards Organization. I have provided consulting services to Accreditation Canada International in their review of Primary Health Care in Ecuador. With Accreditation Canada, I have provided surveyor services in Qatar at 23 Primary Health Care sites under their Primary Health Care Corporation. As well I have provided services for Qatar Petroleum in Qatar and Primary Health Care sites in Dubai.

Since 2017 I have been a co-developer and teacher of the INT D 457 Global Health China Collaboration. This Fudan University, Shanghai-based initiative introduces Canadian health professional students to the system characteristics of health services in Canada and China and Traditional Chinese Medicine. It also introduces health sciences students from Fudan University to to the characteristics and functionality of Canada's health systems. This course ran for three years and was put on hold because of the pandemic. It is scheduled to restart in July of 2023.

As of July 1, 2022 I have started a two-year retirement program with my academic and clinical responsibilities at 50%. 

2022.09.05  DGM

WONCA Europe/Royal College of General Practitioners Joint Meeting 2022.06.29. 2022 June;

Wonca World Conference (Virtual) Nov. 23, 2021 . 2021 November;

Triscott J.A.C., Dobbs B., Charles L., Huang J., Moores D., Tian P.G.J.

Journal of Primary Care and Community Health. 2021 September; 12 10.1177/21501327211044058