From January to March 2001, five national organizations undertook a consultation to identify research themes for future applied health services and policy research, called Listening for Direction: A national consultation on health services and policy issues. The main objective of this consultation was to help design research themes that respond to the needs of policy makers and managers in the health system over the next two to five years.
Listening for Direction II was launched in November 2003 and includes six partner organizations: the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation, the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (within the Canadian Institutes of Health Research), the Canadian Institute for Health Information, the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment, the Advisory Committee on Governance and Accountability of the Federal/Provincial/Territorial Conference of Deputy Ministers of Health, and the Health Statistics Division of Statistics Canada.
Listening for Direction II consists of six phases. Six consultation workshops were held throughout Canada in January and February 2004.