Welcome back and happy autumn! We hope you enjoyed a restful summer. Our Network has been busy with ongoing primary care research projects and events, and we are excited to share the following updates with you.

In This Update

Research Activity Updates
Events
Subscribe to the BC-PHCRN Newsletter

Research Activity Updates

Structured Process Informed by Data, Evidence and Research (SPIDER)

Recruitment of primary care practices for SPIDER is ongoing! If you are interested in participating, or to learn more about this study, please contact the Research Lead, Dr. Rubee Dev (rubee.dev@ubc.ca) or the Network Manager, Shelby Elkes (shelby.elkes@ubc.ca).

SPIDER is a pan-Canadian quality improvement project that focuses on the risk polypharmacy poses to older adults (aged 65 years and older on 10+ unique medications) and the corresponding impact it has on the health care system in Canada. The study uses a pragmatic cluster randomized controlled trial to assess the impact of SPIDER compared to usual care, in reducing potentially inappropriate prescriptions (PIPs). The BC-PHCRN is looking to recruit 14 practices and a proportion of their patients.

There is NO COST to you, and you will earn up to 16.5 MainPro+ credits. Please see the study website for more information.

UBC Innovation Support Unit (ISU) BC Team-based Primary Care Evaluation

The Innovation Support Unit (ISU) improves the health of British Columbians by supporting innovation and improvement in primary care. This is accomplished by collaborating with primary care programs and projects in our province and by connecting academic knowledge and our faculty with these projects.

The ISU team has started recruiting for their Team Based Care (TBC) Evaluation, hosted on behalf of the Ministry of Health. They are currently looking for recommendations of mature, high functioning clinical teams that want to participate!

If you know of any BC TBC teams that might like to participate in an evaluation, please send them this link for more information!

Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Patient Reported Indicator Survey (PaRIS)

With the support of the national OECD PaRIS team, our Network led content analysis on an open-ended question in the patient survey prompting respondents to share their experiences with primary care. This work involved analyzing and coding the open-ended responses from all participating provinces across Canada (Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Newfoundland). Results will be shared in Spring 2025.

Led by Drs. Sabrina Wong and Rubee Dev in British Columbia, OECD PaRIS is an international and pan-Canadian initiative developing, standardizing and implementing a new generation of indicators of patient-reported experience measures (PREMs) and patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) for primary care.

Multidisciplinary Approach for High-risk Patients Leading to Early Diagnosis of Canadians with Heart Failure (MAPLE-CHF)

Led by Dr. Nathaniel Hawkins at UBC, MAPLE-CHF is the Canadian arm of SYMPHONY, an international randomized controlled trial screening for heart failure in the community. Patients at risk for heart failure are identified through their electronic health records and randomized to usual care or a screening strategy using natriuretic peptides and artificial intelligence echocardiography. This study involves an international collaboration of 5 randomized controlled trials using common study design elements and endpoints in 5 respective countries (Canada, Scotland, Sweden, Denmark, United States).

If interested in participating, please contact Project Coordinator, Andrea Chee (achee01@mail.ubc.ca).

Events

Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN) Learning Series

Learning Series 2: Promising Policies for Advancing Access to Primary Care
October 1, 2024 | 9-10 am PT | Webinar

All jurisdictions are dealing with the challenge of connecting people to regular primary care, and many patients are on centralized waiting lists waiting for a primary care clinician. Virtual care and other complementary strategies have been introduced to meet the immediate primary care needs for unattached patients but come with challenges of ensuring integration with other parts of the health system, and in staffing these services in ways that don’t take away from community-based primary care capacity. This panel will bring together researchers and policymakers to discuss implemented strategies, and to learn from both successes and challenges. Register here

Learning Series 3: Integration of Care
October 22 & November 26, 2024 | 9-10 am PT | Webinar

Integration of care remains elusive for many. Yet, growing evidence suggests high-functioning primary health care teams are associated with a low level of provider burnout, improved professional satisfaction, and an ability to effectively distribute tasks and focus clinician’s time on patient’s more complex and personal needs. This learning series explores different methods for examining integration of care and innovations in delivering better integrated care.

If you are interested registering for these sessions, or viewing the recordings from previous learning series sessions – visit the link here.

UBC Centre for Health Services & Policy Research Seminars

Can Causal Inference be Enhanced by Leveraging Machine Learning?
October 15, 2024 | 12-1 pm PT | Hybrid seminar

This talk will explore the distinct methodological approaches for prediction versus causal questions, highlighting the recent excitement around integrating prediction and machine learning tools into causal inference. We will demonstrate their application using real-world databases to address challenges such as residual confounding and model misspecification. Register here

Evaluating Inequities in Refugee & Immigrant’s Health Care Access November 7, 2024 | 12-1 pm PT | Hybrid seminar

This project aimed to understand the health experiences of immigrants and migrants (im/migrants) in BC. With community engagement as the backbone to the study, it combined interviews with im/migrant community members and linked health and immigrations data to explore access to health care since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This seminar will provide an overview of study findings, and discuss lessons learned with respect to analytic choices and interpretation of findings from health and immigration data linkage research. Register here

UBC Faculty of Medicine

Therapeutics Initiative: Bringing Best Evidence to Clinicians
October 18-19, 2024 | Hybrid

Overview: Focused on addressing polypharmacy, this year’s conference takes on a unique format — join in-person on Friday, followed by hybrid sessions on Saturday at UBC Robson Square in downtown Vancouver.

Audience: family physicians, specialty physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, pharmacists, policy makers, residents, and pharmacy and medical students.

Click here to learn more.

Health Research BC

Putting Patients First Conference: Building Learning Communities
November 14, 2024 | Hybrid

This annual conference will advance learning communities to improve BC’s health system. Leaders in the health and health research communities, from patients to policy makers, are welcome. Join the Michael Smith Health Research BC in Vancouver, BC, free of charge!

Click here to register or learn more.

Save the Date! UBC Centre for Health Services and Policy Research 37^th Annual Health Policy Conference

Primary Care at A(nother) Crossroads
March 3-4, 2025 | Hybrid

The 2025 CHSPR health policy conference will confront the primary care crisis. With primary care stretched beyond its limits, it is necessary for provincially delivered and funded systems learn from each other and more quickly apply evidence to practice. Speakers will engage with approaches that are being implemented to support patients in navigating primary care, address workforce shortages, decrease inefficiencies, and use data to transform care.

CHSPR’s long-standing conference promotes discussion between policy-makers, academics, providers, trainees, patients and national organizations on timely issues shaping health systems in Canada. The 2025 conference will bring together participants from diverse groups and from across the country to discuss ways to manage, deliver and finance primary care that aims to achieve the Quintuple Aim; exploring ways to increase health care equity through innovations in care delivery. Addressing challenges in our primary care systems requires co-designing strategies, collaborative dialogues, and coordinating activities, and the conference promises to engage in this transformative work.

Call for abstracts
The conference planning committee will invite submissions of abstracts for poster presentations on health services and policy research topics. The call will open in October.

Registration
Registration will open in November.

See here for more details.

Subscribe to the BC-PHCRN Newsletter

As always, we welcome you to share our newsletter with anyone in your community who may be interested in our research or events. We’re happy to connect with new members, and learn about your interests in public health, primary care or health research!

Please feel free to join here or send us an email.

We also encourage members to join the CPCRN newsletter mailing list and the LinkedIn page to stay up to date with activities and vibrant conversations about primary care, patient-oriented research, policy happening across the national network!