Announcement: New INSPIRE-PHC-2 grant

The Centre for Studies in Family Medicine is pleased to announce their participation in a newly funded Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Health System Research Fund grant. The project, Primary Health Care as the Foundation for Health Systems Performance, Integration and Sustainability: INSPIRE-PHC-2 is a three year funded grant ($2,087,547) with co-principal investigators Dr. Michael Green from the Centre for Studies in Primary Care, Queen’s University, Department of Family Medicine, and Dr. Richard (Rick) Glazier, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Toronto.

Project Leads, Co-Investigators: Lisa Dolovich, Simone Dahrouge, Ruta Valaitis, Anita Kothari, Amanda Terry, Clare Liddy, Merrick Zwarenstein, Noah Ivers, Judith Belle Brown, Saadia Hameed, Richard Glazier, Michael Green.  Sex and Gender Lead, Co-Investigator: Susan Phillips.

This research/policy partnership addresses the major health system challenges of equitable access to high quality primary health care (PHC) and better co-ordination and integration of PHC with other parts of the health and social care system (community care, public health and specialty care). A series of studies will provide better quality information on patient needs and PHC capacity to deliver care in defined geographic areas, and will provide early feedback on the successes and challenges in introducing PHC reforms. This research will help improve access to care, the care experience for patients, and better health outcomes for all Ontarians.

The two studies being conducted at the Centre for Studies in Family Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University are:

  • Facilitating rapid early stage evaluation of PHC renewal initiatives

The project uses a structured template to facilitate deliberative discussion among stakeholders as they develop new interventions to implement their policies for linking primary care providers with inter-disciplinary resources and for addressing population needs. The Nose to Tail (NTT) tool, a previously developed template for structuring deliberations on service delivery interventions will be used (see published paper, https://f1000research.com/articles/5-361/v1). Qualitative data from stakeholder interviews, observation and focus groups will be used to assess whether the NTT is resulting in new interventions that are logically coherent, sufficiently acceptable to stakeholders, and compatible with health system outcomes to warrant implementation.

  • Linking PHC providers to work together
This research will provide data to identify barriers and inform solutions for linking PHC providers to work together. It will also inform change management strategies that can be used at Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) sub-region levels. This qualitative study will use constructivist grounded theory.  Data will be collected through semi-structured interviews. The study will be conducted in phases for each target population which will include LHIN chief executive officers and senior management as well as leaders in the sub-regions, family physician leaders at LHIN and sub-region levels, and health care professionals forming new interprofessional PHC teams. It is expected that data will be collected at different stages of implementation of Patients First initiatives, thereby providing information relevant to early and later stages of adoption.