This past year, the BC-PHCRN has worked to expand our scope of research to address important provincial and national priorities in primary care. This work includes supporting pandemic preparedness, understanding how team‑based care models are changing and how well they evolve, improving patient access through quality improvement, studying medication deprescribing practices, and strengthening the quality of health data. The Network has partnered with staff and researchers from different disciplines, health organizations, and health authorities to offer quality improvement opportunities across the province. These efforts have helped advance primary care innovation across Canada and strengthened research and improvement capacity within the Network. We are recruiting for some of these projects, and have listed them below: Research Activity Updates.
In This Update
- Data in Action
- Research Activity Updates
- MAPLE-CHF: Multidisciplinary Approach for high-risk Patients Leading to Early diagnosis of Canadians with Heart Failure
- PREPARED: Pandemic pREparedness engaging Primary cARe and Emergency Departments
- OPTIC-PHC: OPtimizing Teams for Interprofessional Care in Primary Health Care, a Longitudinal Study of Inter-Professional Team-Based Health Care
- Trainee Spotlight
- Upcoming Events
- Recent Reports/Publications
- Canadian Primary Care Research Consortium (CPCRC) Updates
- Subscribe to the BC-PHCRN Newsletter
Data in Action
Following guidance from the latest CPCSSN Data Quality Report and the Canadian Institute of Health Information, the BC‑PHCRN team is working to improve the quality of the data stored in the BC‑PHCRN data repository. A key focus of this work is making health information more consistent and filling in gaps where data are missing or not coded properly.
Because different electronic medical record (EMR) systems store and extract information in different ways, data from each system must be processed separately before it can be combined into one database. These system‑specific processes are not all the same, and some are better than others at capturing accurate and complete information. As a result, some types of data may be more complete or more reliable than others once they are brought together.
This improvement work is still in progress. Once it is finished, the team plans to produce a report summarizing what was done and how the quality of the data has improved.
If you have any questions related to this work or are interested to learn more, please send us an email.
Research Activity Updates
MAPLE-CHF: Multidisciplinary Approach for high-risk Patients Leading to Early diagnosis of Canadians with Heart Failure
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.
If you are interested in participating in this study, please contact project coordinator Andrea Chee at achee01@mail.ubc.ca
PREPARED: Pandemic pREparedness engaging Primary cARe and Emergency Departments
This pan-Canadian project is intended to enhance surveillance, improve care and health system efficiency, accelerate biomanufacturing of diagnostics, vaccines and therapeutics, and facilitate patient linkage to clinical trials, thereby improving health system efficiency and pandemic preparedness. PREPARED aims to integrate a point-of-care multi-pathogen testing system into primary care clinics and emergency departments. The four interrelated objectives are to:
- Enhance surveillance – identify new viruses and detect future pandemics
- Improve patient care and health system efficiency – improve rapid testing for multiple viruses
- Accelerate the development of treatments, vaccines, and diagnostic tests
- Facilitate linkage to trials – link patients to clinical trials
The Network is actively recruiting interested primary care practices, urgent primary care practices, or emergency departments. If you are interested in participating in this study, please contact project coordinator Emel Islamzada at emel.islamzada@ubc.ca.
OPTIC-PHC: OPtimizing Teams for Interprofessional Care in Primary Health Care, a Longitudinal Study of Inter-Professional Team-Based Health Care
Led by regional lead Dr. Sabrina Wong (lead PI, Dr. Walter Wodchis, Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto), this 12-month, multi-jurisdictional project will be exploring (through interviews and ethnographic observations) how interprofessional primary healthcare teams are initially formed, how they work together, what structural processes (both internal and external) impact dynamics and how they evolve with time. The goal of this work is to understand the lifecycle and challenges of interprofessional care teams in primary health care.
Data collection is underway in four urban and rural primary care clinics.
Trainee Spotlight
This month we recognize our amazing trainee Brett Caswell. Brett is a fifth-year undergraduate student specializing in Computer Science in the Faculty of Science at UBC. Over the course of his two years with the BC-PHCRN, Brett has reviewed primary care guidelines to develop algorithms for gauging chronic disease severity, as well as assessed artificial intelligence tools for data de-identification. His work with the EMR data bridges his technical skills and love for data science with a passion for improving primary care. Currently, he is evaluating measures of patient complexity for predicting the workload of patients in primary care. He received Best Poster Presentation Award at the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research 38th Annual Health Policy Conference for this work. Outside of his research and studies, Brett enjoys swimming, cooking, and biking the Vancouver seawall.
Upcoming Events
Seminar | Centre for Health Services & Policy Research Series
Solidarity and the Expressive Function of Public Health Insurance: The Case of Medicare in Canada
Hybrid | May 5, 2026 | 12:00 – 1:00pm PT | Presenter: Dr. Ana Komparic
Click here for more information and registration details
Webinar | Women’s College Hospital
A&F and PREMs and PROMs
Virtual | May 8, 2026 | 9:00 – 10:00am PT | Presenters: Drs. Sabrina Wong, Nathaniel Hawkins
Click here for more information and registration details
Seminar | Centre for Health Services & Policy Research Series
Running Out of Time to Get Medical AI Right: Capabilities, Risks, and the Potential Displacement of Physicians
Hybrid | May 19, 2026 | 12:00 – 1:00pm PT | Presenter: Dr. Sian Tsuei
Click here for more information and registration details
Webinar | Canadian Primary Care Research Network
Global Lessons to Local Impact: Advancing Clinic-Driven PBRLNs in Canada
Virtual | May 26, 2026 | 9:00 – 10:00am PT | Presenters: Drs. Jennifer Rayner and Machelle Wilchesky
Click here for more information and registration details
Webinar | Canadian Primary Care Research Network
Getting to Patients’ Goals: How the Clinician/Patient Partnership Can Move the Dial
Virtual | June 17, 2026 | 9:00 – 10:00am PT | Presenters: Antoine Boivin, Ghislaine Rouly Wilchesky
Click here for more information and registration details
Recent Reports/Publications
Research output: Educational Attainment and Obesity in South Asian Countries
Dev R, O’Neill Z, Norris CM, Raparelli V, Sarkar S, Pilote L. Association Between Educational Attainment and Overweight/Obesity in Eight South Asian Countries: A Systematic Review. Asia Pac J Public Health. 2026 Jan 6:10105395251409934. doi: 10.1177/10105395251409934. Online ahead of print.
Research output: Use of Artificial Intelligence in Identification of Frailty
Dalsania KA, Ménard A, Sundararaman S, Rahgozar A, de Lima S, Lu X, Al-Ali A, Singh K, Hakimjavadi R, Yan H, Sethuram C, Bergman H, LaPlante J, McIsaac D, Rahimi SA, Sourial N, Thandi M, Wong S, Liddy C, Bandeen-Roche K, Karunananthan S. Use of Conventional Artificial Intelligence Methods in the Identification of Frailty: A Scoping Review. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2026 Mar 17. doi: 10.1111/jgs.70387. Online ahead of print.
Research output: Readiness to Implement a Learning Health System
Giroux CM, Bush PL, Alkhaldi M, Talla PK, Couturier Y, Thomas A, Bussières A, Wong ST, Poitras ME, Ahmed S. Assessing healthcare organizations’ readiness to implement a learning health system: questionnaire validation using a Delphi method. BMC Health Serv Res. 2025 Dec 29;25(1):1626. doi: 10.1186/s12913-025-13636-2.
Canadian Primary Care Research Consortium (CPCRC) Updates
The Canadian Primary Care Research Consortium (CPCRC) is building momentum, with the goal of bringing together the following entities: Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN), the Canadian Primary Care Trials Network (CPCTN) and the data platforms, Canadian Primary Care Sentinel Surveillance Network (CPCSSN) and Canadian Primary Care Information Network (CPIN) to collectively foster innovation, improve healthcare outcomes, and ensure research informs and enhances primary care practices nationwide.
The CPCRC is bringing together all members (researchers, trainees, patient partners and staff) to collectively discuss and determine goals and outputs of the CPCRC over the next few years. We will provide more updates and opportunities to get involved in the months to come.
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!
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