Three projects led by UBC Faculty of Medicine researchers have been awarded more than $2.2 million in federal funding as part of the Government of Canada’s Team Grant: Strengthening the Health Workforce for System Transformation.
The funding will support researchers to investigate the implementation, evaluation, spread and scaling up of evidence-informed workforce solutions that address system-level challenges.
A total of more than $11.6 million in funding was announced from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer and Michael Smith Health Research BC to support 15 research teams and one Evidence Support and Knowledge Mobilization Hub. These teams and hub are investigating ways to strengthen and support Canada’s health workforce and alleviate the health workforce challenges that threaten the provision of timely, equitable, accessible and quality health care.
The Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Sport and Physical Activity, and Taleeb Noormohamed, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Canadian Heritage made the announcement at BC Children’s Hospital Research Institute with funding recipients and UBC researchers Drs. Jennifer Coelho and Alison Elliott in attendance.
“Working together to support health workers is crucial to people in Canada receiving the care they need, when they need it,” said The Honourable Mark Holland, Canada’s Minister of Health.
“Through these initiatives to strengthen and support Canada’s health workforce, our government is working to improve access to timely and equitable care and better health outcomes for people in Canada.”
Faculty of Medicine recipients
Principal Investigator: Jennifer Coelho, Psychiatry
Project Title: Capacity Building in the Pediatric Eating Disorders Workforce: System Transformation to Improve the Continuum of Care
New eating disorders presentations surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, intensified by challenges with clinician availability and training in eating disorders. To address the workforce challenge, our team will study the roll-out of a Provincial Training Hub, which will build capacity in clinicians treating children and youth with eating disorders in BC and the Yukon. We will demonstrate the impact of training and consultation in evidence-based approaches for pediatric eating disorders, improve cultural responsiveness in training, and develop a strategy for national training. Our goal is to improve clinician well-being, and availability of quality evidence-based care for pediatric eating disorders.
Principal Investigator: Anurag Singh, Medicine
Project Title: Building capacity for a sustainable and equitable healthcare workforce in rural, remote and Indigenous communities by implementing innovative team-based hybrid care
Healthcare provider shortages in rural, remote, and Indigenous communities are an important problem. In British Columbia, ‘hybrid care’ programs link health professionals through technology to treat patients (virtual care) alongside local providers (in-person care), bridging service gaps when providers are unavailable and supporting local providers. However, not all communities have embraced such programs. We seek to understand the complexities of implementing ‘hybrid care’, how to make this approach culturally safe and adaptable to unique community needs, while improving healthcare workforce sustainability. Our learnings will be applied to developing service delivery guidelines and ‘hybrid care’ policy scalable across Canada.
Principal Investigator: Alison Elliott, Medical Genetics
Project Title: Strengthening the Healthcare Workforce: Enhancing Genetic Counselling Access and Efficiency
With the advent of precision health, there has been a rapid increase in the utilization of genetic and genomic testing across all medical specialties and a consequent increased demand for genetic counselling services. This has resulted in unacceptably long wait times. Strengthening the healthcare workforce by integrating genetic counsellors where they do not currently practice and providing genetic counselling supports through innovative methods will contribute to cost efficiencies and improve access to genetic counselling services. We will take a multi-stream, multi-partner, and multi-site approach to deploy and deliver optimal clinical genetic healthcare to Canadians.