FAQ
- Identify patients in your practice at elevated risk of ALS who require further investigation
- Provide patients with the opportunity for earlier diagnosis and treatment that is likely to enhance their quality of life
- Minimal time/effort is required after signing the enrollment agreement
- Receive an honorarium to share your program results with colleagues in a small group session
Community neurologists using one of the following EMRs are eligible to participate:
- Accuro
- Cerner
- Epic
- Healthquest
- iClinic
- IndiviCare
- Oscar Pro
- Telus
In addition to the above mentioned EMR systems, the patients should have EMG records.
Signing-up is very easy. Simply complete the enrollment form linked here and someone will contact you with the next steps.
Should you have any other questions, please send an email to laura@alsprogress.ca to learn more about participating.
The Process for Progress in ALS is a quality improvement initiative that uses a clinical algorithm to screen electronic health records for patients with symptoms consistent with ALS. The goal is to reduce delay in diagnosis and treatment for patients with ALS. EMR records of participating clinics are scanned once every 3 months for a total of 12 months. The likelihood of ALS is estimated for all patients who have visited the clinic in the past 3 months and whose records include a recent EMG. A report is sent to the clinic for each patient flagged for follow-up.
The ALS algorithm was developed under the guidance of a steering committee (Dr. Angela Genge, Dr. Amer Ghavanini and Dr. Amanda Fiander), with the support of Ensho Health, a Canadian digital healthcare services company. The algorithm is deployed using Ensho’s software platform and is registered as medical device software in Canada under Ensho’s Medical Device Establishment License (16208).
We are in the golden age of data and artificial intelligence (AI). Consequently, this topic dominates conversations worldwide, including within the scientific community. AI has enhanced clinical diagnosis and decision-making performance across various medical domains. In the present day, AI is being applied to solve a multitude of real-life problems and has shown great potential to accelerate the understanding and management of many health disorders, including neurological ones. Therefore, embracing this powerful tool is important in order to further leverage its full potential.
References:
Yu, KH., Beam, A.L. & Kohane, I.S. Artificial intelligence in healthcare. Nat Biomed Eng 2, 719–731 (2018).
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41551-018-0305-z
Lopez-Bernal D, Balderas D, Ponce P, Rojas M, Molina A. Implications of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Motor Neuron Diseases—A Review. Life. 2023; 13(4):1031.
https://doi.org/10.3390/life13041031
Once you sign up, you will be connected with Ensho Health, who will provide you with a contract to officially participate in this initiative. Once the contract is signed, Ensho will directly contact your EMR provider to coordinate the integration of your EMR with their platform. Timelines can vary based on EMR vendors, but the first analysis is typically completed within 4 weeks. Data linkages are coordinated directly with EMR vendors of cloud-hosted solutions or local IT teams once authorized.
This initiative will require minimal time from you. Every three months, your EMR database will be scanned and you will receive individual reports by email and or/fax for any patients flagged for follow-up. Click here to view a sample report. You should review each report and the patient’s record to determine whether additional investigations are required and/or referral to an ALS specialty centre.
At the end of 12 months, you will meet with one of the steering committee members (Dr. Angela Genge, Dr. Amer Ghavanini or Dr. Amanda Fiander) to review and discuss your results. You will also have the opportunity to share your learnings with your peers in a small group session, for which you would receive an honorarium.
- You are not required to spend hours auditing your patient charts. The Ensho ALS clinical algorithm does this for you.
- You will receive simple reports clearly summarizing analysis results and any recommended follow-up actions for subsequent patient visits.
- Enrollment is straightforward - a single agreement will be emailed to you via DocuSign.
No, you do not need to obtain consent from your patients to participate in this initiative. The initiative has been reviewed and approved by an independent ethics review board and participating physicians are not required to obtain consent from their patients.
Additional information regarding compliance with health privacy laws is available at
https://www.enshohealth.com/resources.
Yes, this initiative has been reviewed and approved by Optimum, an independent ethics review board (file no 1003). As part of this approval, participating physicians are not required to obtain consent from individual patients. The approval letter is available upon request.
Ensho adheres to regional health information privacy legislation in every province they provide services. Provincial privacy memorandums are available at https://www.enshohealth.com/resources.
Ensho uses industry-leading administrative, physical and technical safeguards to protect the health information they process against loss, theft, unauthorized access, disclosure, copying, inappropriate use and modification. This includes implementing HIPAA-compliant technical safeguards and collecting the minimum amount of health information necessary and storing it for the minimum amount of time necessary to complete the analysis.
Your EMR provider will temporarily make your database available to Ensho for the purpose of the analysis performed every three months. You will have the option to de-identify the database records prior to the analysis. The reports are only sent to the email address or fax number provided on the enrollment form. The data/reports will not be shared externally. Only anonymized, aggregate data may be used in future publications.
Ensho is culpable for any breach other than those caused by the negligence of a subscriber (e.g., if they use a compromised email address, etc.) Ensho holds $2,000,000 in cyber liability coverage that protect its customers in the unlikely event of a privacy breach.
This initiative is supported by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Canada (MTP-CA) but neither MTP-CA, the steering committee, the organizing committee, or anyone else will have access to your individual patient-level data. By electing to participate in Process for Progress in ALS, you agree that an aggregate and anonymized report summarizing the results can be shared with the steering committee and EOCI, the organizing committee.
You can contact EOCI, the organizing committee by email at laura@alsprogress.ca
Ensho Health is a Canadian digital healthcare services company that provides on-demand analysis of health information to match patients with clinical trials, build better real-world evidence and accelerate rare disease diagnosis and treatment.
This initiative is supported by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma.
EOCI is the organizing committee and medical education partner for this initiative.
