Edmonton – The Canadian and Alberta governments have launched a new initiative focused on patients being directly involved with medical research.
Alberta Health Minister Fred Horne calls the Alberta Support for People and Patient-Oriented Research and Trials (SUPPORT) Unit a new approach to health research.
“Patients are actually involved at the time that they’re undergoing care or perhaps before or after they’ve undergone care. Researchers are working with them at the bedside in order to look at how evidence that’s already been acclimated then can be applied in the care setting.”
The research focuses on priorities identified by patients, with the hope of producing information for decision makers and health care providers that will improve health care practices, therapies and policies.
“It takes the things that used to be done on the bench, written up in journals and not acted on for years, it accelerates that process, so that we’re in real time,” says Minister Horne.
Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose calls the initiative “groundbreaking.”
“It’s probably surprising for a lot of people to find out that researchers and patients don’t necessarily talk to each other. That’s what this is about: patients are actually telling researchers ‘here’s what we need, this is where we think you should go, this is the kind of things we’re feeling in our bodies.’ It’s literally that simple,” explains Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose.
The federal government is investing $50 million to have a SUPPORT unit in Alberta. Minister Horne says the money will supplement current research funding.
“We’re the only province in the country that has one system for everyone, and the fact that all of our research in health is part of the Ministry of Health allows us to put that together and to essentially create a living laboratory where we can actually test things, as the minister said involving patients right at the bedside.”
Alberta is the first province in Canada to commit to the research.
“We know that Alberta is ahead of the game, leading edge innovation and health care is happening in Alberta, and that is why this is the first unit that we’ve seen set up,” says Minister Ambrose.
The federal government says there are four more units ready to move to other provinces across the country.
“Because Alberta is doing certain things really well, other provinces can learn from what Alberta’s doing. So we hope to get that information out, those best practices and those leading edge innovations and share them across the country,” explains Minister Ambrose.
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