Increased collaboration among health-care researchers and involvement from policymakers, patients and the community are important keys to building a health-care system that meets the needs of all people, organizers of a new province-wide initiative said.
In November 2019, the Manitoba Primary & Integrated Healthcare Innovation Network (MPN) hosted the Building Primary Health Care Research Capacity in Manitoba meeting, a two-day event that brought together 49 researchers, clinicians, policymakers and community partners from across the province to begin identifying priority actions to build research capacity.
“We need to strengthen our research capacity, especially at a time when there is significant health system change underway,” said Dr. Patty Thille, one of the event’s organizers. “Research capacity, in simple terms, is the ability to carry out research. It involves a range of actions, such as enhancing skills and confidence, at different levels – individuals, teams and within communities.”
The event was funded and supported by MPN. Thille, assistant professor of physical therapy in the College of Rehabilitation Sciences, and Dr. Gayle Halas, co-research lead with MPN and chair of interprofessional collaborative practice, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences, co-facilitated the meeting.
Top priorities identified at the workshop were a commitment to equity, the creation of a “centre of excellence” that would serve as a one-stop resource for primary health-care research, and establishing a cross-Manitoba network that brings patients, policymakers and community partners together with researchers.
“It is important to develop a health-care system that meets the needs of people wherever they are, as opposed to building models and systems that tend work best for people who already have a lot of resources,” Thille said. “It’s a really relevant topic in Manitoba, where we still have the legacies of colonial oppression and some pretty notable disparities.”
A planning committee also included Dr. Jamie Falk, assistant professor in the College of Pharmacy, Dr. Alan Katz, director of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy, and Dr. Roberta Woodgate, professor in the College of Nursing and Canada Research Chair in Child and Family Engagement in Health Research and Healthcare.
“The idea was to be cross-college, cross sectors, and be strategic about where we put our energies,” Thille said.
The event included three international speakers, including Dr. Grant Russell, professor of primary care research at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, who introducedthe dimensions of research capacity.
Dr. Anne MacFarlane, professor of primary health-care research at the University of Limerick, Ireland, spoke to the value of community involvement in primary health care, offering examples from her own research on migrant health.
Dr. Jean-Frédéric Levesque, chief executive of the NSW Agency for Clinical Innovation in Chatswood, Australia, outlined what he anticipates are big concerns in the primary care field. Among these were the need to study new ways to use health-care data and personalized universality in health care.
A second conference will be held in June, with exact date, location and speakers to be announced soon.
There will also be a series of one-hour online discussions, the first of which takes place March 31 and will help those not in attendance at the November meeting catch up on what has happened to date and give feedback on the emerging direction of work.
“The discussions are open to anyone who’s interested,” said Jennifer Pepneck, knowledge broker with MPN. “We are looking to hear from clinicians and researchers doing work in primary health care as well as policy-makers and people who bring the patient voice to the discussion.”