Donate Now
  • What We've Learned
Rheumatology Care for Children with Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis in Manitoba: A Closer Look at Access and Follow-up
JIA-Care
Scientific Study Title:
Testing of System-Level Performance Measures for Inflammatory Arthritis
Start Date:
  • 2015
End Date:
  • 2022
Research Category
Tags
Claire Barber-Website Headshot-400x400
Claire Barber
Research Scientist, Rheumatology, MD, PhD, FRCPC
Diane Lacaille-Website Headshot-400x400
Diane Lacaille
MDCM, MHSc, FRCPC, Scientific Director, Rheumatology
Cheryl Barnabe, Research Team Member, Arthritis Research Canada
Cheryl Barnabe
Senior Scientist, Rheumatology, MD, MSc, FRCPC
Glen Hazlewood-Website Headshot-400x400
Glen Hazlewood
Research Scientist, Rheumatology, MD, PhD, FRCPC

Why did we do this research?

Reason For Research

Juvenile Idiopathic Arthritis (JIA) is the most common form of inflammatory arthritis in children. It is important that children get diagnosis and treatment for juvenile idiopathic arthritis as early as possible. The Arthritis Alliance of Canada (AAC), an organization of over 36 Canadian arthritis stakeholder groups, developed ‘Models of Care for Inflammatory Arthritis’. The Models of Care highlight best practices for early diagnosis and treatment using a set of quality measures for inflammatory forms of arthritis. These measures can be used to test the success of care models. We did this study because we wanted to look at two of these quality measures that are specific to juvenile idiopathic arthritis care.

 

What did we do?

Execution of Research

We used Manitoba’s provincial administrative health records to find children under 16 years who were diagnosed with juvenile idiopathic arthritis between 2005 and 2015. We then checked two measures:
1) The percentage of kids who saw a pediatric rheumatologist within the first year after their diagnosis, and
2) How many of these kids had at least one follow-up visit with the specialist every year.

We also looked at how many times there were long gaps between visits, gaps of more than 12 or 14 months.

 

Related Publications

  • Barber CEH, Lix LM, Lacaille D, Marshall DA, Kroeker K, Benseler S, Twilt M, Schmeling H, Barnabe C, Hazlewood GS, Bykerk V, Homik J, Thorne JC, Burt J, Mosher D, Katz S, Shiff, NJ. (2019). Testing population-based performance measures identifies gaps in juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) care. BMC health services research, 19(1), 572. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-019-4379-4

Media and Infographics

Related Research

What We're Working On Right Now

Exploring a New Immune Cell Therapy for People with Autoimmune Diseases

Systemic sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus are serious autoimmune diseases that can cause damage to many organs including the skin, lungs and kidneys. In this project, we will study a new type of treatment that may better control these diseases by targeting the immune cells that cause them. If successful, it could reduce inflammation, slow or stop disease progression, and may even help reset the immune system, so that some patients no longer need long-term immune-suppressing medications.
Read More

Understanding how scleroderma affects people over time

People living with scleroderma experience challenges such as pain, disability, and mental health concerns, but we still don’t know much about how these problems change over time or why some people do better than others. For this research project, our goal is to improve our understanding of how scleroderma affects people’s daily lives and identify factors that may predict changes in their health.
Read More

How can we help Canadians age at home to improve health outcomes and support a sustainable healthcare system?

As Canada’s population ages, home care is important for helping older adults remain safely within their homes. Our research team is linking data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging with health records in British Columbia, Ontario, and New Brunswick, to track patterns of paid and unpaid home care use over time.
Read More