BRIC NS is pleased to share the results of the CIHR Knowledge Synthesis and Comparative Program and Policy Analysis competitions.  Integrating end of life care to help people stay in the community: The essentials for success (Knowledge Synthesis) and Integrating Paramedics and Primary and Palliative teams to Optimize Patient Time in the Community at the End-of-Life (Comparative Program and Policy Analysis) are being led by BRIC NS members.

Integrating end of life care to help people stay in the community: The essentials for success (Knowledge Synthesis)

Led by BRIC NS member Dr. Grace Warner and partnered with PEI.  The project focuses on understanding and supporting the complex needs of patients and their family caregivers who are dealing with multiple chronic conditions and/or life limiting illnesses. The project will synthesize the evidence for what community-based resources are critical in the last year of life for patients and their family caregivers, how a case management approach can improve the integration of these resources into innovative community-based palliative care models, and the challenges different practice settings face when trying to use a case management approach. The project will engage individuals who deliver and receive community-based palliative care to get their perspectives on what literature should be synthesize to ensure the final product addresses their needs. The final product will provide a report on findings along with recommendations for enhancing the implementation of innovative community-based palliative care models that address the complex needs of patients and family caregivers in the last year of life into bereavement.

Dr. Grace Warner is an Associate Professor at the School of Occupational Therapy at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and an Affiliate Scientist with Nova Scotia Health Authority. She conducts applied health services research focused on understanding and facilitating community-based care needs of older adults and their families. She is involved in a range of research projects that involve Nova Scotia Health Authority Continuing Care and Primary Health Care; these include examining remote monitoring of home care clients, assessing frailty in primary health care, self-management strategies for older adults and their caregivers, and how to work across sectors to improve community-based palliative care.

Integrating Paramedics and Primary and Palliative teams to Optimize Patient Time in the Community at the End-of-Life (Comparative Program and Policy Analysis)

Led by BRIC NS member Dr. Alix Carter and partnered with BC. This project is a comparative analysis of two provinces, one with and one without the paramedics providing palliative care at home program, as it represents programmatic innovation in health care delivery.  British Columbia will serve as the comparison province without a comparable program.  This cross-provincial comparison has the primary objective to examine whether the Program is associated with the ability of people to stay in the community longer during the end of life, satisfying patient/family needs and using fewer hospital resources. The project also includes a formal assessment of potential to scale to a system level.

Alix Carter, MD MPH FRCPC is an assistant professor and attending medical staff in the Dalhousie Department of Emergency Medicine, Director of the Division of EMS and the Emergency Health Services (EHS) Medical Director of Research. She holds a fellowship in EMS and a Masters of Public Health from Yale University. Dr. Carter attended medical school at the University of Western Ontario and completed her emergency medicine residency in Manitoba. Dr. Carter is a co-chair of the Canadian EMS Research Network and the chair of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians EMS committee. Dr. Carter’s research interest is in health system design, and integration.

Details on other projects with BRIC NS involvement can be found here.  Congratulations to all of the BRIC NS members involved in successful grants.  If you are thinking of applying for the next round of funding please contact bricns@dal.ca to set up a consultation or complete our intake form.