Strategies that achieved consensus to retain
| Level | Strategy | Panellists who rated to retain (%) |
| Patient 7 of 8 strategies retained | Consider patients’ cultural needs and economic circumstances when offering treatment, self-care advice and/or programmes (eg, language, cost of services from physiotherapists, chiropractors, dietitians, etc) | 93.8 |
| Offer education sessions about OA and self-management to persons with OA (women-only, group, in-person and virtual, multiple languages, across Canada, free, at workplaces or community centres) | 90.6 | |
| Provide educational material about OA to persons with OA (brochures physicians can hand out, posters in community settings and online, in multiple languages, include culturally relevant information) | 90.6 | |
| Healthcare professionals that first learn about patients’ OA concerns or symptoms should refer them for manual therapy (eg, physiotherapy, chiropractic therapy, occupational therapy) | 90.6 | |
| Involve interpreters (family or professional) to translate spoken language during healthcare appointments | 81.3 | |
| Have regular follow-up visits with patients to monitor progress (eg, following self-management advice, symptom control) | 81.3 | |
| Offer peer support groups for persons with OA to help with self-care (virtual and in-person, multiple languages) | 81.3 | |
| Clinician 7 of 7 strategies retained | Healthcare professionals should engage patients by inquiring about OA management needs and preferences (suggested in round 1) | 98.1 |
| Ensure that all healthcare professionals have a full picture of patients’ health history via shared records | 93.8 | |
| Provide healthcare professionals with OA educational materials to give to patients | 92.2 | |
| Provide healthcare professionals with information or tools to help them diagnose and treat OA in persons from disadvantaged groups | 89.1 | |
| Provide healthcare professionals with training on bias and cultural sensitivity | 87.5 | |
| Provide healthcare professionals with timely access to interpreters | 87.5 | |
| Provide medical school education and education about how to diagnose and manage OA | 85.9 | |
| System 13 of 16 strategies retained | Develop public spaces in all communities that promote physical activity (eg, bicycle/walking paths) | 93.8 |
| Evaluate the equity of OA programmes or policies in healthcare organisations using existing tools (eg, surveys, measures, instruments) that are designed to assess equity of access to and quality of care among disadvantaged groups | 90.7 | |
| Implement OA-specific clinics or centres (eg, one-stop clinics where patients can access various healthcare professionals (family physicians, physiotherapists, chiropractors, social workers, etc)) | 89.1 | |
| Engage diverse persons with OA, healthcare professionals to develop a Canadian OA strategy | 89.1 | |
| Engage diverse women and other disadvantaged groups in planning OA policies, strategies and programmes | 87.0 | |
| Advocate for and fund research on equitable access to and quality of OA care (suggested in round 1) | 87.0 | |
| Publicly fund services for OA management (eg, ensure that provincial health insurance covers services from physiotherapists, chiropractors, dietitians, etc) | 85.9 | |
| Implement primary care hubs in underserved areas for disadvantaged groups that include primary care physicians and nurses in community agencies | 84.4 | |
| Collect and share data about the health experiences of disadvantaged groups (eg, diverse women) to understand their specific OA needs and preferences | 84.4 | |
| Train lay health leaders or community health workers from disadvantaged communities to assist persons with OA in their community with OA self-management | 84.4 | |
| Fund OA diagnosis and management (eg, primary care, manual therapy, exercise therapy, self-management education, etc) as part of home care services (suggested in round 1) | 81.3 | |
| Allow persons with OA to self-refer to clinics or self-management programmes (eg, patients do not need to rely on primary care provider for a referral) | 81.3 | |
| Offer health promotion campaigns to the public on how to prevent and manage OA in a variety of formats and settings including but not limited to social media, billboards, cultural media, shops, places of worship, etc | 81.3 |
OA, osteoarthritis.