Report to Community 2023

New Orientation Guide: Highlights important link between Patient/Public Partners and research

The MSSU Patient/Public Partner Orientation Guide was co-developed by MSSU Patient/Public Partners and MSSU staff. The working group created and curated content to support both new patient/public partners and researchers on how to work together in health research. This living document was a key activity in the 2022/23 workplan and has become an essential onboarding guide for the MSSU. It is also easily accessible on our website.

“I think it’s incredibly important to have the orientation guide for patient partners. First thing, it shows patient partners that the MSSU invests in the importance of that position within research. Second, it makes all the information very accessible and inclusive, considering we are including a glossary of acronyms and more. As a Patient/Public Partner, I would have loved to have had the opportunity to review an orientation guide prior to doing any projects, as that knowledge transfer would have been critically valuable and given me the confidence to be a working member of a research project.” – Linda Verlinden, MSSU Patient/Public Partner

Advancing Digital Health with Evidence-Based Research
MSSU partners in collaborative literature review to support SPOR-funded entity

In the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare, collaboration is key to driving progress and innovation. Recently, a unique collaboration unfolded in the Maritimes that serves as an exemplary model of a learning health system. This collaborative effort involved various stakeholders, including knowledge users, content experts, and a patient partner, all working together. The result was a rapid scoping review for a national not-for-profit organization, Canada Health Infoway (Infoway). Infoway launched PrescribeIT®, an e-prescribing service to revolutionize prescription management. Recognizing the need for robust evidence, Infoway approached the SPOR Evidence Alliance to broker two rapid scoping reviews: one about e-prescribing and opioids, and the other about e-prescribing and medication safety.

The opioids review went to a team at the University of Toronto, and the medication safety review went to MSSU Learning Health System Science Leads Drs. Janet Curran and Christine Cassidy’s Strengthening Transitions in Care (STIC) Lab at IWK Health. With the support of MSSU’s Senior Evidence Synthesis Consultant Leah Boulos, a Halifax team of content experts including pharmacists, healthcare providers and a Patient/Public Partner was assembled to provide input on the project. Working with the review team of research assistants and associates at the STIC Lab, the rapid scoping review report was completed in about three months and delivered to Infoway. A full manuscript has now been submitted to an academic journal.

“Overall, this was really an ideal example of all the pieces working together: SPOR-funded entities cooperating to support a local research team, producing a rapid, high-quality product for a national not-for-profit, and incorporating the review team’s methodological expertise with the expertise of the knowledge users and content experts,” says Boulos.

Rapid reviews have also been conducted with Patient/Public Partners  to evaluate COVID-19 drugs in Nova Scotia. 

New Brunswick Institute for Research Data and Training: A leader in cutting-edge data

New Brunswick Institute for Research Data and Training (NB-IRDT) continues to strive to be at the forefront of fostering impactful research, data accessibility, and knowledge sharing. In the past fiscal year, the Institute has added 13 additional datasets to their data holdings, bringing the total number of available data sets for research to 100, expanding their capacity to provide valuable insights into health, education, and social sciences. Moreover, the Institute hosted eight research knowledge sharing events with government in areas such as mental health, frailty, continuity of physician care and innovative technology to aid older adults age in place. These sessions, available on the NB-IRDT YouTube channel, have not only facilitated open dialogues but also serve to inform policy decisions that directly benefit our community. The number of approved research projects continues to grow with 15 new research projects initiated this year. Their mission to bridge the gap between data and action remains steadfast. They are excited to have enabled numerous researchers to turn these data into actionable insights for the province.

MSSU New Brunswick team: Mixed-methods research to improve care for rural oncology patients

Despite the association between longer survival and novel therapies, people living in rural communities are often faced with lower access to these therapies due to limited cancer care visits and follow-up compared to their urban counterparts.

By bringing together clinicians and Patient/Public Partners, the study, Evaluation of quality improvements to telehealth for rural oncology patients, will inform further improvements to a Fredericton telehealth system that recently changed how it provides healthcare to people in rural areas.

“Not everyone has the means to travel to regular appointments or the voice needed to self-advocate, ask questions, discuss concerns, side-effects or treatment schedules which can be interrupted for many reasons… so when this study came up, it was an opportunity to reflect on my own experience and the struggles others face when living in a rural area,” said Heather Hogan, MSSU Patient/Public Partner. “It is so important for the healthcare system to understand the needs and supports that should be in place for rural oncology patients.”

When Heather, who lives in a rural town, was diagnosed with cancer she was lucky to have chemotherapy at her local regional hospital and a spouse to support her on visits with her oncologists and radiologists in Saint John.

The research team will establish a baseline of care by looking at past medical records to see how things like treatment interruptions, delays, missed doses, and patient participation in clinical trials changed before and after the telehealth improvements. They’ll also check things like how long patients survived without their condition getting worse and overall survival. Next, they’ll talk to patients and healthcare providers in interviews to understand what they think about telehealth and how it’s working for them. Lastly, the team will bring together doctors and patients to talk about the study’s results and figure out what they mean for the healthcare program.

Dr. Luisa Galvis and Samantha Fowler, MSSU Clinical Research Manager in Saint John, were awarded Best Joint Oncology Presentation at the November 2022 New Brunswick Health Research Foundation Conference for this MSSU priority project.

Movement Matters: Exercise improves outcomes for people with osteoarthritis

In 2022/23, the MSSU released a summary report: Current Management and Health Care Use for People with Osteoarthritis and infographic: Osteoarthritis in the Maritimes detailing key findings from a study examining self-reported characteristics of people living with and without OA in the Maritime Provinces.

The research revealed people with osteoarthritis who had low physical activity levels had more additional diseases than those without osteoarthritis who also had low activity levels. Also, people with osteoarthritis who reported higher physical activity levels reported less opioid use, which suggests a possible protective effect of increased physical activity on the use of pain medications, particularly in early stages of the disease.

In this project, identified by stakeholders as a priority health topic, researchers used existing data from the Atlantic Partnership for Tomorrow’s Health (PATH) in all three provinces. For Nova Scotia specifically, the Atlantic PATH data was combined with administrative data accessed through Health Data Nova Scotia. This helped us see how people in Nova Scotia with and without osteoarthritis use health care services.