UBC researcher part of team approved for funding in the recent CIHR Pan-Canadian SPOR Network in Primary & Integrated Health Care Innovations – Quick Strikes competition

Dr. Sabrina Wong, Professor in the UBC School of Nursing, Director of the UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, and research lead of BC-PHCRN, is a member of a multi-jurisdictional team from across Canada, who recently received funding approval through the CIHR Pan-Canadian SPOR Network in Primary & Integrated Health Care Innovations – Quick Strikes competition, for their project, “Characterizing high system use across the primary-tertiary care continuum: parallel analyses of select Canadian health datasets.”

It has been determined that as much as half or more of health care expenditures in Canada are accounted for by 5% of the population. Significant gaps in our understanding of these high-use patients remain, including how they engage with the health care system, and whether there are similarities and differences between the characteristics of high use patients in primary and hospital-based settings. Closing these knowledge gaps has been identified as a top research priority both provincially and nationally, to enable policy makers who are struggling to develop effective strategies aimed at reducing costs while at the same time improving patient care.

This project aims to address these important issues by leveraging data from electronic medical records and multiple administrative data sources from across Canada. Using these data, the research team will explore the similarities and differences in the characteristics of high use patients across different health care settings. This work is a necessary first step towards integrating these complementary data sources, and will provide essential foundational information about high users across the health care continuum. It will also promote future inter-provincial collaborative research and health policy development. Their goal is to inform innovative clinical strategies and policies to improve quality of care and health outcomes for patients with high system use.