Other : SPOR National Data Platform

Canada’s Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR) was created after extensive consultation with governments, patients and care givers, researchers, health professionals, policy makers, academic institutions, charities and the private sector. SPOR reflects a commitment to deliver high quality care in Canada by providing patients, health professionals and policy makers with the best available information to make decisions about health care by embedding patient-oriented research approaches throughout the research continuum.

Patient-oriented research, which is foundational to evidence-informed health care, refers to a continuum of research that engages patients as partners, focuses on patient-identified priorities and improves patient outcomes. Patient-oriented research is conducted by multidisciplinary teams in partnership with relevant stakeholders and aims to apply the knowledge generated to improve healthcare systems and practices.

The vision of the strategy is that Canada will demonstrably improve health outcomes and enhance the health care experience for patients through the integration of evidence at all levels of the health care system.

A key component of SPOR is the development of specialized research service centres referred to as Support for People and Patient-Oriented Research and Trials (SUPPORT) Units. To date, nine regional SUPPORT Units have been funded and are at various stages of implementation. While these Units are facilitating data access locally, studies that require data from more than one province/territory (P/T) can be slow to progress as researchers are required to obtain the data from each region; moreover, these studies are labour intensive as the data obtained is not harmonized.

This Funding Opportunity will support one SPOR National Data Platform; therefore the community is strongly encouraged to work together. This Data Platform will:

• address major barriers and inefficiencies in accessing or using multi-jurisdictional/ national data for patient-oriented research that cannot be addressed by the individual provincial and territorial (P/T) SUPPORT Units;
• leverage unique Canadian assets enabling international leadership in patient-oriented research;
• be pan-Canadian in scope.