Information Webinar on CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship ProgramJanuary 18, 2021 Hosted by Dr. Neesh Pannu, Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry

Neesh Pannu, MD, MSc, Associate Dean Clinical Research Platforms and Health Outcomes, Faculty of Medicine & DentistrySunita Vohra, MD, MSc, Professor of Pediatrics. Previous HSIF supervisor (academic).Tracy Wasylak, BN, MSc, Strategic Clinical Networks™ (SCN) Chief Program Officer. Previous HSIF supervisor (health system).Kiran Manhas, JD, PhD, Assistant Scientific Director for the Neurosciences, Rehabilitation & Vision SCN. Previous PDF-HSIF Fellow.Kaitlyn Tate, PhD candidate and Research Program Manager CLEAR Outcomes Program, Faculty of NursingCarol Ladner-Keay, PhD, Director of Clinical Research

Information Webinar on CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship Program 2021

• Better understand the CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship Program

• Learn about health system opportunities working with the Strategic Clinical Networks in AHS

• Gain perspective on the program from former HSIF academic supervisors, health system supervisors and trainees.

Objectives

1. Introduction

2. Overview of the HSIF application process

3. Objectives of the HSIF program

4. Perspective of an academic supervisor

5. Perspective of a health system supervisor and partner opportunities with SCNs

6. Perspective of a former HSIF trainee (PDF)

7. Question & Answer Session (Please place questions in the chat box).

Agenda

Opportunity for doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows studying health services and policy research, to apply their training in a paid experiential learning project within a health system (and related) organization.

Value of award: Doctoral fellows receive a one-year fellowship ($45K stipend*), working with health system partner for at least 60% of their time.

Post-doctoral fellows receive a two-year fellowship ($140K stipend*), working with health system partner for at least 70% of their time. *Plus professional development and research allowance

HSIF at-a-glance

CIHR Application deadline: February 18, 2021

Request for RSO approval by: February 10, 2021

Notice of Decision: June 15, 2021

Funding Start Date: September 1, 2021

Key Dates

1. Find health system partner – Expression of Interest Process

2. Complete application as a team (trainee, academic and health system supervisor).

3. Obtain institutional approvals and signatures

4. Submit on ResearchNet

Overview of Application Process

This competition merges the Fall 2019 competition with the Fall 2020 competition and includes a larger budget: 66+ Fellowships are available – it’s worth applying!

Expression of interest process

Step 1: Applicants explore potential host partner organizations (via the partner linkage tool, or self-identified)

Step 2: Applicants submit expressions of interest (EOIs) to organizations (multiple EOIs are permitted)

Step 3: Organizations meet with applicants of interest to discuss ideas and explore fit

Step 4: Confirm partnership and develop CIHR application

Supervisor completes a Proposal Request via the Researcher Home Page. Instructions here. • Attach completed CIHR application. Include Signature page

downloaded from HSIF application in ResearchNet.

• The request goes to 1st) Department Chair 2nd) FoMD Office of Research and 3rd) Research Services Office (RSO) for approval.

• Deadline for application to go to RSO is February 10th

• RSO will review, provide feedback and sign Signature page (only RSO signs as the institution paid).

• Click here for full details on RSO internal approvals process.

University of Alberta Internal Signature Process

Sunita Vohra, MD MSc, is a professor and clinician scientist in the Department of Pediatrics in the FoMD and cross-appointed to the Department of Psychiatry. She is a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Her research focuses on enhancing clinical research methods, such as N-of-1 trials, and improved measurement of adverse events. She has supervised many trainees and was previously an academic supervisor of a trainee in the HSIF program.

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Increase Organizations’ Awareness of the Value of PhD-trained Individuals• Provide health system and related organizations with direct opportunities to realize

and harness the benefits that PhD-trained individuals can bring to such organizations.

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Support Impact-Oriented Career Paths• Elevate PhD trainees’ and post-doctoral fellows’ career readiness and ability to

make an impact in a broader range of employment sectors.

Expand and Enrich the Traditional Training Environment• Engage health system and related organizations in preparing a cadre of promising

PhD-trained individuals for successful, impactful careers.

Goal: Prepare the next generation of health services and policy PhD graduates with the professional skills, competencies, experiences and networks to make meaningful and impactful contributions throughout their careers, within and outside of academia.

Health System Impact Fellowship Objectives

Past HSIF projects at UofASee past fellows and projects here.

PhD fellow (year awarded)

Academicsupervisor

Partnerorganization

Project title

Kaitlyn Tate (2018)

Greta Cummings

Alberta Health, Continuing Care Branch

Factors influencing transitions (FIT) in Home Care

MelitaAvdagovska(2018)

DevidasMenon

AHS ChiefMedical Information Office

Implications for a Province-Wide Implementation of a Patient Portal

Past HSIF projects at UofASee past fellows and projects here.

PDF (year awarded)

Academicsupervisor

Partnerorganization

Project title

Kiran Manhas(2017)

Sunita Vohra & Karin Olson

AHS Embedding Shared Decision-Making in Patient Centered Care in Community Rehabilitation Programs in Alberta

FarahMawani(2018)

Stephanie Montesanti

DignitasInternational (Toronto)

Working with Canadian and global Indigenous, excluded, and underserved populations to strengthen health systems’ response to non-communicable disease inequities

Ellen Rafferty (2018)

Shannon MacDonald

Alberta Health, Analytics

Immunization on a budget: Using health economics to inform immunization policy in Alberta

Evaluation Criteria

Achievements and potential of the applicant (25%)

Quality of the host partner organization’s and academic institution’s training, supervision and mentorship (35%)

Quality, potential impact and feasibility of the applicant’s project/program of work proposal (20%)

Potential value-add to the applicant and the host partner organization (20%)

* Full details of evaluation criteria found in ResearchNet. See here: Review Process and Evaluation

Requires input from supervisors

Enriched Core Competencies: pan-Canadian Training Modernization Strategy

Analysis of data, evidence & critical thinking

Change management & implementation

Knowledge translation, communication & brokerage

Networking

Analysis & Evaluation of health & health-related programs & policies

Leadership, mentorship& collaboration

Interdisciplinary work

Understanding & comparing health

systems & the policy making process

Project Management

Dialogue &Negotiation

Professional HSR Core Competencies

Traditional HSR Core

Competencies

Learn more: Bornstein et al. (2018). Development of Enriched Core Competencies for Health Services and Policy Research: Training for Stronger Career Readiness and Greater Impact. Health ServicesResearch,

1. Identify the right team – the academic and health system partners need good synergy

2. Work with applicant to start early and work closely with both supervisors (academic and health system)

3. Check that all of the program objectives and evaluation criteria are met.

4. Encourage applicant to articulate: what can you achieve through HSIF that you could not achieve in a traditional PDF?

Perspective of Academic SupervisorPoints to Consider

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Tracy Wasylak, MSc, is the Chief Program Officer of the Strategic Clinical Networks™ at Alberta Health Services. She has held numerous senior leadership roles withinAlberta Health Services and the previous CalgaryHealth Region. Tracy holds an adjunct assistant professorappointment with the Faculty of Nursing at theUniversity of Calgary, and is the Co-Lead of the LearningHealth System – Phase 2 of the Alberta Support Unitfor Patient Oriented Research. She has supervised several trainees in the HSIF program.

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Strategic Clinical Networks™Health Systems Impact Fellowship Opportunities 2020-2021

Provincial Addiction and Mental Health

Our goal is to implement and asses the efficacy and cost effectiveness of a novel eMH program to improve access to addiction and mental health screening, resources and services for youth in Alberta.

Critical Care The priority area of focus for this fellowship is support and facilitate the Critical Care SCN’s evolution into a Learning Health System (LHS). The Health Systems Impact Fellow will perform comprehensive analysis of our critical care populations, operations and critical care clinical practices, to describe and identify intensive care unit (ICU)-level and clinician-level variations in practice, and to identify targets for further evaluation and health systems improvement (using Critical Care Data).

Emergency Support two postdoctoral fellows, one position is open in scope and one is limited to quantitative research. The Emergency SCN seeks productive postdoctoral fellows with strong theoretically informed backgrounds in health systems research, clinical epidemiology, biostatistics, analytics, and/or social determinants of health.

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Kidney Health Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common complication in hospital. The Health Systems Impact Fellow will leverage existing provincial healthcare data infrastructures and data assets to perform comprehensive analysis of the burden of AKI within the population, operations, and clinical practices. Analysis will include description and identification of clinician-level variations in practice and identify targets for further evaluation and quality improvement.

Medicine The Health Systems Impact Fellow will leverage existing provincial healthcare data infrastructures and data assets to perform comprehensive analysis of healthcare populations, operations, and clinical practices. Potential priority areas of interest would include (but are not limited to): Best practices in hospital organization and operations, including implementation and evaluation of strategies to: reduce actual vs. estimated length of stay and improve transitions in care and reduce hospital readmission rates.

Neurosciences, Rehabilitation and Vision

The Health System Impact Fellow will be involved in seminal work of identifying and implementing quality indicators across the three clinical streams of the NRV SCN, through engagement with an interdisciplinary team of healthcare professionals, researchers and educators, patient and family advisors, community and industry partners, policy makers and health system operational leaders.

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Primary Health Care Integration Network

The Primary Health Care Integration Network, a member of the Strategic Clinical Networks™, our focus on enhancing integration across the health care system, while supporting the testing, implementation, scale and spread of research and innovations to improve patient and system outcomes.

Surgery A Health Systems Impact Fellow will help the Surgery SCN to tap into the data repositories and generate valuable information to inform decision making. One major goal is to reduce surgical wait times to less than 4 months by 2023.

Alberta Pain StrategyOur goal is to implement an Alberta Pain Strategy across the province exploring opportunities to integrate both research and educational strategies to improve outcomes for those with acute and chronic pain across the lifecycle

Kiran Pohar Manhas, JD, PhD was a former HSIF postdoctoral fellow at the U of A supervised by SunitaVohra, Karen Olson, and Tracy Wasylak. Currently, she is the Assistant Scientific Director for the Neurosciences, Rehabilitation & Vision Strategic Clinical NetworkTM in Alberta Health Services and anAdjunct Assistant Professor in the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary

Email: kiran.poharmanhas@ahs.caTel: 587-774-7734Website: https://www.albertahealthservices.ca/about/Page13594.aspx

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Kaitlyn Tate is a PhD candidate in the Faculty of Nursing, supervised by Greta Cummings and was a HSIF fellow from 2018-2019 embedded as a PhD Fellow with the Alberta Health Continuing Care Branch. She is also a registered nurse and Research Program Manager for all CLEAR Outcomes projects.

Email: ktate@ualberta.caTel: 780-492-5026

Key Messages: Why apply? Contribute your skills to solving real world health system challenges at the

coal face of health policy and service delivery – affect change! Advance the culture and appetite for evidence-informed health system

improvement and an affinity for research within health system organizations – build capacity!

Benefit from mentorship and supervision from health system and academic leaders

Develop professional experience and transferrable skills to elevate your career readiness

Become part of a new national cohort of fellows and health system leaders - extend your professional networks

Experience a career outside the traditional academic environment Keep at the forefront of research developments by maintaining a portion

of your time for academic research Invest in your potential as a future health system leader

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1. Aligning priorities between supervisors and fellows• Commitment to project, fellow and fruition

• Learning new styles of communication

• Negotiating language of application

2. Crafting your project and application• Things we wish we had known

• Living between infrastructures

• The team (not the individual)

• Special populations

Perspective of a traineePoints to Consider

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Thank you!

Questions?

Please enter your questions in the Zoom chat box and the moderator will read out for the panel.

Further questions can be sent to cladner@ualberta.ca