Dr. Paradis and Collaborators Receive 2016 CIHR Project Scheme Grant

TOR Clinical Excellence Award Feb2016.pdfCongratulations to Drs. Elise Paradis (Anesthesia), Heather Boon, Sioban Nelson; Sal Spadafora (Anesthesia), and Cynthia Whitehead who have received a 2016 CIHR Project Scheme Grant for their project, “The collaborative ideal in Canadian healthcare delivery: Its rise, practice and future”. The grant is valued at $ 300,000 for five years

Over the past decades collaboration has emerged as a key solution to healthcare’s challenges, from fatal errors to escalating costs. Since the failure of collaboration causes a large proportion of reported errors and adverse events, improving collaboration to improve patient outcomes makes intuitive sense, and Canadian governments, institutions of higher education and hospitals have invested time, money and personnel resources to improve collaborative practice.

Yet the literature connecting collaboration with positive outcomes is exceedingly sparse and inconclusive, and despite decades of investment in collaborative practice and interprofessional education, uncertainty remains as to whether collaborative practice leads to improved patient care. Is collaboration really the panacea it is portrayed to be? Or is it an ideal – a collaborative ideal – that will stay forever out of reach?

The specific research aims of the project are:

1. Mapping the Past. Document the historical rise of the collaborative ideal as a solution in healthcare delivery in Canada using an ethnographic content analysis approach to textual analyses and key informant interviews;

2. Understanding the Present. Explore ethnographically, through interviews and observations, how healthcare professionals perceive and practice the collaborative ideal at the University of Toronto and in the Toronto Academic Health Science Network (UT/TAHSN);

3. Shaping The Future. Using our team’s expertise and an integrated knowledge translation (iKT) strategy, transform findings into an innovative and evidence-based Action Plan to improve collaboration and education.

Please join us in congratulating the investigators on this wonderful achievement!