Over the past four months, IHSPR staff has continued to work tirelessly on behalf of the health services and policy research community. Our partnered national consultation on priority health care system issues, Listening for Direction II (LfD II), was by all accounts a great success. It has validated the continuing relevance of most of the research priorities identified in the first LfD report (June 2001). As anticipated, new themes have emerged and some of the previous issues have been fine-tuned. The final LfD II report will be completed this summer and posted on the Institute's website. The partners will meet later this year to determine which LfD II themes will be championed by each of them.
Another major undertaking for IHSPR has been planning for the transfer of the projects component of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation Open Grants Competition (OGC) to CIHR. The transition is well underway and CIHR is moving quickly to establish necessary policy and infrastructure support to sustain this competition. Once CIHR hosts this competition it will encompass health services and policy priorities of all the CIHR Institutes, as well as the LfD II priority themes. You'll find more details in this newsletter.
We continue to make steady progress on the project intended to increase the number of policy-relevant health services research publication vehicles for timely Canadian research.
I hope to be able to provide more details shortly.
Finally, we are all looking forward with great anticipation to the inaugural conference of our new Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR), in late May. The conference represents a very significant milestone for our research community in Canada. We hope to see you there!
Morris Barer,
Scientific Director
Two Requests for Applications will be posted in June 2004 to support research syntheses and pilot projects in thematic areas identified as high priority during recent national consultations, including:
A Request for Applications will be launched in June 2004 to support new and emerging teams in undertaking research and knowledge translation initiatives related to financing, funding and resource allocation in health care. New and Emerging Team (NET) grants are intended to support the creation of new, or the expansion of recently established teams of independent investigators and decision-maker partners to engage in collaborative research intended to bring new insights and added value to policy-makers and system managers.
The projects component of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) Open Grants Competition (OGC) will be transferred to CIHR and our first Request for Applications for this competition will be launched in the fall of 2004. This unique competition supports excellent applied health services and policy research, including nursing research. It is designed to bring together health services and system decision-makers with researchers to increase the quality, relevance and usefulness of their research.
CIHR is very excited to assume responsibility for administering this partnered projects competition, while CHSRF will maintain the program portion of the OGC. The OGC projects competition will become a standing funding program with dedicated staffing and plans are underway to determine its new name. In collaboration with CHSRF, CIHR will continue to support this competition's nursing leadership, organization and policy theme. At the same time, CIHR's Institutes see this initiative as an effective way to support health services and systems research priorities across the organization. CIHR intends to expand the eligible themes within this competition to include the themes that have emerged from the Listening for Direction II consultation, as well as the thematic health services and policy priorities of other Institutes.
CIHR is committed to upholding the philosophy and key attributes of this competition, including linkage and exchange and merit review. It views this transfer as an important step forward in the transformative evolution of the organization. If you have any questions about the transfer, please contact Michelle Gagnon at (613) 952-4538, or mgagnon@cihr-irsc.gc.ca
If you have not already registered for the 1st conference of the Canadian Association for Health Services and Policy Research (CAHSPR), to be held in Montreal, May 25-28, it is not too late.
Recently updated information on the conference programme, pre-conference advanced research methods courses (for which it is possible to register independently of the conference), a link for online registration, and other information, are now available at the web site [ new window ] [ Help ].
IHSPR's Scientific Director, Morris Barer, will have the honour of being the fourth Emmett Hall Lecturer, at the inaugural CAHSPR conference on May 27th.
The Emmett Hall Memorial Foundation was created in May 1997. The main purpose of the Foundation is to arrange for an outstanding lecturer to provide a periodic Memorial Lecture at an appropriate national conference in Canada. For this award, the Foundation nominates an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to the advancement of health ideals, as articulated by Justice Hall: equity, fairness, justice and efficiency.
IHSPR welcomes Dr. Anne Martin-Matthews as the new Scientific Director of the CIHR Institute of Aging, effective March 1, 2004. Dr. Martin-Matthews is a professor in the School of Social Work and Family Studies, and former Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies and Dean pro tem in the Faculty of Arts at the University of British Columbia. She was Founding Director of the University of Guelph's Gerontology Research Centre (1983-1995), a Research Group Leader on CARNET: The Canadian Aging Research Network (1990-1995), and Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Journal on Aging (1996-2000).
Dr. Martin-Matthews has also served on the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Seniors Independence Research Program of Health Canada, the Board of the Canadian Association on Gerontology, and the Research Advisory Council of BC's Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research. Dr. Martin-Matthews most recently served as interim Scientific Director of the Institute of Aging after serving as Vice-Chair of its Advisory Board.
Celebrations on March 16, 2004 formally recognized Canada's best and brightest health researchers and lead supporters of health research for their outstanding contributions to improving the health of Canadians, our health care system and the knowledge-based economy. Award recipients well known among the health services and policy research community included Drs. Jeremy Grimshaw from the University of Ottawa and Annalee Yassi from the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw was acknowledged for his research in the field of knowledge translation (KT). Since he moved to Canada in 2002 as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Knowledge Transfer and Uptake, he has established himself as a leader in KT research in four key areas: systematic reviews of interventions to improve health service delivery and systems; evaluation of KT strategies; development of a theoretical basis for KT; and a situational analysis of Canadian KT activities. He is the Coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Collaboration Effective Practice and Organization of Care, an independent Canadian-based evidentiary source of KT strategies for managers and policy-makers worldwide.
Dr. Annalee Yassi was acknowledged for her work in knowledge translation. As founding Executive Director for the Occupational Health and Safety Agency for Healthcare, Dr. Yassi helped establish an agency that marries research and practice to reduce injury and illness among healthcare workers in British Columbia. Since the agency was established, the provincial injury rate for the healthcare industry has decreased by 27 per cent, while annual days lost per 100 full-time employees have decreased 38 per cent since 1999.
IHSPR and the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation are pleased to announce the appointment of Gail Tomblin Murphy, Dalhousie University, School of Nursing and Department of Community Health and Epidemiology, as Science Lead for the health human resources theme area. In this part-time role Gail will advise the two organizations on issues and opportunities, represent the two organizations and the research community at national and regional meetings on health human resources, and assist with capacity-building by helping to recruit new researchers to this theme.
Bernie O'Brien passed away on February 13th at the age of 44 after having made an enormous impact on the field of health services research. He was a professor in the department of clinical epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster University and an associate of the Centre of Health Economics and Policy Analysis at McMaster. Dr. O'Brien held a CIHR senior investigator career award.
Donations can be sent to the Bernie O'Brien Memorial Education Fund
Attention: Nancy Kolenski
Faculty of Health Sciences
Health Sciences Centre, Room HSC-2E4
McMaster University
1200 Main Street West
Hamilton, ON
L8N 3Z5
Cheques may be payable to "McMaster University" and indicate "Bernie O'Brien" in the memo section of the cheque or covering note. The O'Brien family will be notified of your gift unless you prefer to remain anonymous. All donors will receive a charitable donation receipt.
Based on feedback from program participants and others regarding the 'user-friendliness' of the French acronym for the CADRE program, its name and acronym have been changed, effective March 26, 2004, to:
Le programme CADRE - Capacité et développement en recherche appliqué et évaluation dans les services de santé et en sciences infirmières.
What does this mean?
How does this affect you?
Recognizing the need to strengthen Canada's capacity to respond to new and ongoing public health threats, the CIHR Institute of Population and Public Health commissioned the document The Future of Public Health in Canada: Developing a Public Health System for the 21st Century. The document reports on a review of the organization and funding of public health services in comparative nations and provides a prescription for action -- one that has been echoed in subsequent reports by David Naylor, Senator Kirby and others. To obtain a copy of the executive summary, please visit the IPPH website.
For a copy of the full report, please contact Kim Gaudreau at kgaudreau@cihr-irsc.gc.ca
CIHR recently funded 29 projects to support research likely to lead to new breakthroughs in theories, conceptual frameworks, research methods or measurement approaches that have broad application to health services, systems and policy research and population and public health research, or to understanding the translation of research into a strengthened Canadian health care system and improved health for Canadians.
The following are examples of funded applications relevant to IHSPR's
mandate:
Title: Development of a standardized diagnostic list for use in Canadian emergency departments
Principal Investigator: Bernard Unger, Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital-Montreal
Title: Developing a framework for studying intergovernmental relations in public health
Principal Investigator: Harvey Lazar, Queen's University
Complete listing of funded applications
Compelling Values: Privacy, Access to Data and Health Research
CIHR and partners recently funded 4 projects to support initiatives that address issues related to the collection, use and disclosure of personal information for health research purposes, with a view to: improving the health of Canadians and ensuring a strengthened health care system, on the one hand, while respecting and protecting Canadians' right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to their personal information, on the other.
The following are examples of funded applications relevant to IHSPR's mandate:
Title: Understanding Canadians' attitudes & expectations re: privacy, access to data, and health research - a comparison of survey & citizens' dialogue methods
Principal Investigator: Donald Willison, McMaster University
Title: The Development of New Conceptual Paradigms Responding to Privacy and Access Challenges in Health Research
Principal Investigator: Elaine Gibson, Dalhousie University
Complete listing of funded applications
Public Health and Health Care System Preparedness and Response to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS): Evaluation and Lessons Learned
CIHR and its partners recently funded 10 projects to examine and analyze the public health, and health care system responses to the SARS outbreak in Canada, in the context of the global epidemic, in order to ensure that evidence-based practice, and cost-effective outbreak management strategies are utilized to the maximum extent possible in any future outbreaks of this kind.
The following are examples of funded applications relevant to IHSPR's mandate:
Title: Economic Evaluation of Direct Medical and Non Medical Costs Associated with a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) Outbreak
Principal Investigator: Nicole Mittman, Sunnybrook and Women's College Health Sciences Center
Title: Barriers and facilitators to implementing protective measures against SARS for healthcare workers: a collaborative interdisciplinary study
Principal Investigator: Annalee Yassi, University of British Columbia
Complete listing of funded applications
Staying Ahead of the Wave: Genetics, Health Services and Health Policy
CIHR recently funded 3 projects to support initiatives likely to lead to longer term research proposals or programs of inquiry to address the most important, emerging issues facing the Canadian health care system in response to new understandings about human genetics and the burgeoning of genetic information, technologies, products and services. An example of a project funded under this initiative is:
Title: Evaluation and priority setting for genetic services: a case study
Principal Investigator: Fiona A. Miller, McMaster University
Complete listing of funded applications
Fall 2003 IHSPR Priority Announcements -
Research Personnel Awards:
New Investigators
RFA: Global Health Research Pilot Project Grants
RFA: Palliative and End of Life Care: Pilot Project Grants and Career Transition Awards
The CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research is dedicated to supporting outstanding research, capacity-building and knowledge translation initiatives designed to improve the way health care services are organized, regulated, managed, financed, paid for, used and delivered, in the interest of improving the health and quality of life of all Canadians.
Morris Barer, Scientific Director
Tel: (604) 222- 6872
Fax: (604) 224-8635
mbarer@ihspr.ubc.ca
Diane Watson, Assistant Director
Tel: (604) 222-6871
Fax: (604) 224-8635
dwatson@ihspr.ubc.ca
Craig Larsen, Institute Manager
Tel: (604) 222-6874
Fax: (604) 224-8635
clarsen@ihspr.ubc.ca
Frederick Garrow, Administrative Assistant
Tel: (604) 222-6870
Fax: (604) 224-8635
fgarrow@ihspr.ubc.ca
David Gehrmann,
Assistant Information
Technology Administrator
Tel: (604) 222-6873
Fax: (604) 224-8635
dgehrmann@ihspr.ubc.ca
CIHR - Ottawa
Michelle Gagnon, Senior Associate
Partnerships and Knowledge Translation
Tel: (613) 952-4538
Fax: (613) 941-1040
mgagnon@cihr-irsc.gc.ca
Michèle O'Rourke, Associate
Strategic Initiatives
Tel: (613) 952-4539
Fax: (613) 941-1040
morourke@cihr-irsc.gc.ca
Kim Gaudreau
Project Officer
Tel: (613) 957-6128
Fax: (613) 941-1040
kgaudreau@cihr-irsc.gc.ca
