Medical researchers in Saskatchewan will have more opportunities to conduct studies in the province with the creation of a special unit at Saskatoon City Hospital.
"We are the only province in Western Canada that doesn’t have dedicated in-hospital space where we can see patients as part of the research process," said Beth Horsburgh, vice-president of research and innovation for Saskatoon Health Region.
"We really need this facility and we’ve been disadvantaged for quite some time at not having such a facility."
At its regular meeting last week, the Saskatoon Regional Health Authority approved a three-year pilot project called the Saskatoon Centre for Patient-Oriented Research.
The health region will provide space for the eight-bed unit at City Hospital and will arrange for physician coverage and emergency backup for the patients admitted to the unit. The cost will be about $183,000 a year. The University of Saskatchewan’s college of medicine will pay for a medical director, research nurses, the administration of the unit and some equipment at a cost of about $455,000 a year. The third partner is the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, which will contribute $30,000 a year to pay for staff education and establishing credentials as well as auditing of the research studies.
Medical research often requires that patients involved in studies stay overnight for regular monitoring.
"Sometimes there will be blood draws as frequent as every 15 minutes during a trial. You have to control what (the patients) eat, when they go to bed. And you have protocols that have to be followed as well as very meticulous record keeping, which has to be capable of withstanding audit by Health Canada and the FDA in the U.S.," Horsburgh said.
While money spent on medical research is down in Canada, it’s up in Alberta and British Columbia. Horsburgh hopes the new unit will allow Saskatchewan researchers to develop more partnerships with researchers in Alberta and British Columbia and attract medical research dollars to this province.
The City Hospital unit would come at a cost for researchers, but Horsburgh said the fees will depend on what kind of organization is involved in the research.
"For investigator-driven research that’s initiated here in Saskatchewan, we would have a lower fee or nominal fee. For local contract organizations that are based in Saskatchewan, we would have a fee that enables us to recoup our costs and pay our staff. For people external to the province, and we believe there will be some who will want to come and do work here, there will be a market rate that will be charged," she said.
The benefits of the unit include opportunities to improve drugs and medical procedures, to enhance medical education of Saskatchewan students and health-care professionals, and to recruit and retain world-class researchers and clinicians.
The unit will be ready for its first patients in April.
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