Strategic Priorities

1. Engaging and supporting citizens

Citizens play many roles in the healthcare system – as patients, as healthcare providers and administrators, as caregivers, as volunteers, as members of boards of healthcare organizations, as taxpayers, and by managing their own health. Under the strategic priority of “supporting and engaging citizens,” CHSRF has chosen to focus on citizens in two specific roles – as members of boards of healthcare organizations and as patients in the healthcare system.

  

We do this by:

  • Exploring effective ways to involve patients in the design, delivery and evaluation of health services
  • Helping organizations work with patients to improve service quality
  • Providing support to citizen representatives on boards to strengthen their capacity to govern healthcare organizations

  

2. Accelerating evidence-informed change

Canada invests significantly in research programs and pilot projects designed to improve health services. These projects have the potential to bring about widespread and positive change, but many of them remain “promising yet unproven approaches”: experiments that are not well understood or communicated across the health system.

  

The challenge is to apply research successfully. To maximize the benefits of research, it needs to be tracked and evaluated. Changes need to be made based on the results and lessons learned and organizations need to be supported in their efforts to manage those changes.

  

We will:

  • Fund research that will provide a clear understanding of the processes of change and learning within innovative Canadian healthcare organizations
  • Provide a national resource centre to support change initiatives
  • Develop learning opportunities that bring organizations together to address problems related to managing change within Canadian health systems

  

3. Promoting policy dialogue

As Canada’s population grows and ages, and as healthcare budgets continue to rise, healthcare reform is essential to ensure sustainability of high-quality services. However – despite widespread commitment to conducting high-quality research and implementing innovative solutions – there is often a failure to take up the best evidence and make positive change across healthcare systems.

As an independent knowledge-brokering organization, the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation (CHSRF) brings stakeholders together to support evidence-informed policy development, planning and decision-making. Our activities aim to encourage frank and open dialogue among policy-makers, researchers, and the public. By disseminating the best evidence and promoting productive discussions about the benefits of using that evidence to inform decisions, CHSRF actively supports improvements to Canadian policy and health system management.

Our goals are to:

  1. provide formal and informal opportunities for sharing policy challenges and emerging strategies in Canada’s provincial and territorial health systems
  2. develop, encourage, support, and sustain new and non-traditional partnerships required to successfully implement reform in healthcare systems
  3. actively promote the social and economic benefits of applying the evidence generated by health services research in Canada

 
CHSRF will commission research and programming under three themes:

      • Healthcare financing and transformation
      • Canada’s aging population
      • Primary healthcare

 

 
Making Research Work