Excellence Through Evidence
This award recognizes a health services leader who has successfully implemented evidence-informed innovations in care and service delivery.
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| | as a continuum that extends from the initial good idea to subsequent best practice (an innovation with a local track record of success), and finally to research-based evidence (best practice with proven generalisable value)." Jonathan Lomas (2007). Formalised Informality: An action plan to spread proven health innovations. Wellington, New Zealand: Ministry of Health |  | 
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The winner receives
- A certificate and an award of $15,000 to be used in the following year for activities aimed at sharing knowledge and experience, in a way designated by the winner, to inspire similar innovation across the country
- Travel, accommodations and registration to the 2012 CEO Forum in Montreal to receive the award
Who is eligible for this award?
- Individuals who have demonstrated evidence-informed leadership throughout their career or who have led the implementation of major evidence-based innovation(s) are eligible. The innovation(s) must have been informed by research and demonstrate system-level impact. Pilot or demonstration projects do not qualify.
- Individuals must be in an executive leadership position in a healthcare organization (hospital, community health centre, regional health authority, provincial ministry, public health agency, community health agency or other).
- Individuals who have articulated a compelling vision of the future of their organization and demonstrated the ability to execute extensive implementation and organizational change based on good evidence.
- Individuals who have implemented major quality improvement initiatives driven by evidence within their organization or region, making a substantial difference to population or patient care, outcomes and use of resources.
Nominees must be currently active in their organization and in the health services field, in order to be able to use the $15,000 award to transfer their knowledge and experience.
Conflict of interest and ethics
Employees and trustees of CHSRF are not eligible for this award. All nominators and nominees must adhere to CHSRF’s conflict of interest policy (PDF).
CHSRF requires that program teams, administering agencies, and partners respect the requirements for the ethical conduct of research as expressed in the following policy documents:
1. “Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans” (1998) available from the website of the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics. The appropriate local review committee operating in accordance with the relevant statements of policy must approve any research involving human subjects before it starts; and
2. “Tri-Council Policy Statement: Integrity in Research and Scholarship” (1994): a Tri-Council Policy Statement prepared jointly with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, available from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada web site.
Nomination process
Nominators must use the CHSRF Nomination Form. The following information is required in the nomination:
- full contact information for the nominator(s) and the nominee;
- a maximum of 500 words outlining your reasons for nominating the individual, identifying the nominee’s stature and the nature of his/her main evidence-informed leadership and/or major innovation(s) implemented. The selection criteria, below, should be used as guiding principles;
- other pertinent information (a maximum of 10 additional pages) that may assist the selection panel — for example, participation in leadership panels, forums, professional associations; mentorship activities; research collaboration; scope of influence and profile in Canada and abroad; references to articles/reports written by the nominee; letters of support; an abridged résumé that includes activities relevant to the nomination.
The 2012 competition is closed.
Selection process
All nominations will be screened by CHSRF staff for consistency with the eligibility requirements of the competition as outlined above. Eligible nominations will be reviewed by a merit review panel composed of health services researchers and decision-makers.
Selection criteria
The merit review panel for this award will assess nominees against the following criteria:
- contribution, impact and influence in healthcare management and/or policy contexts (length of time in the organization; breakthrough achievements in innovation and change through evidence implementation; recognized quality of leadership, management, decision-making or other related activities);
- demonstrated achievement in systematically improving performance quality based on evidence use, organizational culture, and leadership agenda along with behaviors that support improvement driven by evidence in change management;
- nature, breadth and length of evidence-informed leadership experience (role model in the field of evidence implementation, networking and dissemination; recognition and profile in Canada and abroad, communications — speaking, writing activities);
- scope of implemented evidence-informed innovation (new knowledge development tools and/or application; innovative strategies in leadership change management; type of innovation(s) — for example, improvement of services, organizational culture change in favour of evidence-informed decision-making, new technology, new information systems, new workforce practices).
Presentation of award
The Excellence through Evidence award will be presented at the 2012 CEO Forum to be hosted by CHSRF on February 15, 2012, in Montreal, Quebec.
For additional information, contact grantsandawards@chsrf.ca.