About the Program
Portrait is a quality improvement program created by the Therapeutics Initiative at the University of British Columbia, and is sponsored by the BC Ministry of Health. Using existing administrative health data, Portrait provides personalized insight into BC general practitioners’ prescribing practices, allowing them to assess their own performance against the best available evidence.
Each Portrait provides a short, evidence-based educational message on a selected drug class or condition, a graphical representation of the individual physician’s prescribing, and some suggestions for evidence-based prescribing practice. Some Portraits also provide a comparison to other BC family physicians.
Portrait uses a secure and confidential process to ensure individual physicians’ prescribing patterns are seen only by them, for their personal continuing medical education only; Portrait is not an external performance audit. Individual patient and prescriber data are protected and cannot be identified by the Portrait team.
This educational tool is available to all eligible family doctors in BC and is mailed to their address listed with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC. If you are a general practitioner in BC and would prefer to receive your Portraits electronically, please sign up at: https://tinyurl.com/portrait-survey. We are currently developing the infrastructure to securely provide electronic delivery of Portraits, and we hope to offer this option in the near future.
Participation in the Portrait program is voluntary and includes an ongoing evaluation of how well Portrait supports family physicians and helps patient outcomes. If you are a primary care provider in BC and prefer not to participate in the program, please fill out our online form, email portrait@ti.ubc.ca, call us at (604) 822-4887 or fax: 604-822-0701. If you opt-out of Portrait you will no longer receive personal prescribing Portraits or be included in the evaluation. You can opt back into the program at any time using the above contact options.
Portrait Topics
Portraits were first produced and distributed in 2020. On average, we anticipate producing two Portraits per year. The following Portraits have already been produced and distributed:
- How do you prescribe statins in the elderly?
- Sparing opioid prescription to opioid naïve patients
- Long-Term Proton Pump Inhibitor (PPI) Use: Less Can Be More When Treating Heartburn
The Therapeutics Initiative would like to acknowledge that this research is being conducted on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), the Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh), and the Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) peoples.
