In the coming weeks, MSSU will publish the final report for the Small Area Variation in Rates of High-Cost Healthcare Use Across Nova Scotia research study led by Primary Investigator Dr. George Kephart.

Small Area Rate Variation is the analysis of the differences between small geographic areas. Using this approach to exam-ine high-cost healthcare users in Nova Scotia offers a way to understand the use of healthcare and physician services while providing insight into policy needed to improve rates.

“Nova Scotians are declining in numbers and aging. Healthcare is our largest expenditure. We must figure out how to deliver it more efficiently and effectively and one of the most striking re-sults from this study is the stark differences in health outcomes between different regions across the province of Nova Scotia,” says Dr. George Kephart, Primary Investigator, “I’m hopeful that by identifying areas of high-cost and poor outcomes, this report will lay the groundwork for local innovation and targeted inter-ventions.”

Dr. Kephart has presented his research findings to several groups within the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick healthcare system. In July, he presented findings to the NS Department of Health and Wellness at the request of the Deputy Minister

of Health and then to the Executive of the Nova Scotia Health Authority. In September he delivered a presentation of findings to the Nova Scotia Minister of Health and Wellness, Leo Glavine and also traveled to New Brunswick to meet with the NB De-partment of Health and Wellness. Following these meetings, SARV was added to considerations for Nova Scotia’s health ser-vices planning.

The SARV study takes existing health administrative data and pairs it with the lived experience of patient advisors from groups like Your Way to Wellness, Diabetes Centres, and Cancer Care NS. Dr. Kephart believes that this was a crucial component of the work, “the insight and ideas contributed by the Patient Navigators was incredible. We owe much of the success of this project to them and the experience of patient engagement has given me key insights on how to move this work forward.”

The next phase of this work involves taking a closer look at the individuals behind the numbers. The research team is currently working on a proposal for an in-depth study involving conversa-tions with the patients, their families, and care providers in the hot spots identified to ascertain how to better meet their needs and improve health outcomes for all Nova Scotians.

NewsletterMSSU

USSM January 2016 | Volume 3, Issue 1MARITIME SPOR SUPPORT UNITUNITÉ DE SOUTIEN SRAP DES MARITIMES

The Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit (MSSU) is a multidisciplinary research and facilitation unit dedicated to sup-porting patient-oriented health services research and decision-making in the Maritime provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Visit http://www.mssu.ca/ for more information.

SARVLaunch

JANUARY 19MSSU Seminar Nova Scotia: Towards A Learning Health Care System for Canada

JANUARY 20Alberta SPOR Webinar Evaluating Research Impact: From the General to Specific. More info here.

FEBRUARY 3MSSU End of Grant Knowledge Translation Workshop A half-day workshop for researchers, trainees and support staff who want to learn how to write an end of grant knowl-edge translation (KT) plan. FEBRUARY 10 Information Without Borders Conference (IWB) Managing Health Information: Technologies and Strategies for the 21st Centuryiwbconference.ca

FEBRUARY 10 Alberta SPOR Webinar Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration to Translate Knowledge into Pharmacy Practice

FEBRUARY 11 KT Canada National Seminar Series These take place the second Thursday of the month.

NSHRF REAL KT Curriculum Creative Messaging & Social Media Registration: http://www.nshrf.ca/realkt

FEBRUARY 16MSSU Seminar Small Area Rate Variations in High-Cost Healthcare Users in Nova Scotia

FEBRUARY 22 & 23 ArcGIS Training (Halifax) Following a successful two-day training work-shop in November at UNB.

MARCH 3 Atlantic Series Healthcare Summit MARCH 9 Alberta SPOR Webinar Research to Practice to Research: Using diverse knowledge translation methods to improving pain treatment during painful procedures for infants and children. More info here.

MARCH 15MSSU Seminar Why Intellectual Property (IP) Matters

APRIL 19MSSU Seminar Leveraging Adminis-trative Health Data to Evaluate and Inform Health Services Planning

Upcoming Training and Workshops “at-a-glance” for more details visit our Training and Events Calendar at www.mssu.ca

KSGrantWorkshop

DataWorkshop

Page 2

Volume 3, Issue 1

2015 Grant Workshop Pariticipants

Looking forward to the January 2016 deadline for the final CIHR Knowledge Synthesis (KS) Grant, Jill Hayden (Nova Scotia site of Cochrane Canada) and Sarah Visintini (MSSU) offered a one-day workshop to aid those Maritime patient-oriented health researchers who were planning to apply.

Participants were offered the opportunity to discuss their research project with former grant recipients and received help to further develop their grant application.

The workshop included sessions on refining review questions and rationale, adequately describing review methods, and considering a knowledge translation approach. The workshop also offered hands-on activities that helped participants further develop their literature search strategy, study selection criteria, and data extraction sheet.

In addition to the workshop’s high demand (all spots were filled with additional spots created), MSSU received excellent feedback on these sessions and the sense from participants that there is an appetite for these types of workshops planned around key research funding opportunities. As a result of this workshop, MSSU received four MSSU research support requests.

Interprovincial Data Workshop Pariticipants

On August 24-25, Staff from HDNS and MSSU met with consultants from T4G to begin detailed planning for the launch of a new computer platform (Hadoop) and the migra-tion of the HDNS data repository. The modernization of the platform allows for easier data accessibility and offers a new user interface for data analysis.

Attending from HDNS/MSSU: Dr. Leslie Anne Campbell, Yan Wang, Sandra Pauls, Craig Gorveatt, Jordan Farrell, Martha Cox, Christina Wang, and Chris Filliter. Attending from T4G: Janet Forbes, Charlie Cook, and Darryl Dutton. Also joining us were Mark Leggott and Dana Sanderson from PEI. They will be working with T4G later to develop a similar computer platform for a PEI health data repository.

ArcGISWorkshop REBWorkshop MSSU epidemiologist, Dr. Dan Crouse, hosted a two-day training workshop on GIS at the University of New Brunswick. Each session was well attended and included students, aca-demics, government employees and professional participants.

Due to the high interest, there are plans to expand on the training offered in the coming year to include more areas of interest to government, students and researchers. A repeat of this training is scheduled for Halifax on February 22-23.

On November 27, Dr. Jennifer Payne hosted a Maritime-wide interactive discussion, guiding 24 registered participants through the MSSU REB Best Practice Guide. She also offered “tips and tricks” for projects involving secondary use of data.

This session was a great success for the Data and Privacy Advisory Committee and talks are underway to re-offer the session at a later date.

By Jon Dyer, MSSU Patient Engagement Consultant

The MSSU is commencing annual Council of Advisors engagement sessions in all three Maritime Provinces beginning in January.

The Council of Advisors provides community groups, advocacy partners, and other healthcare stakeholders with an opportunity to share issues impacting their organi-zations’ ability to provide healthcare services. The sessions will also seek to determine if evidence through health research can help these orga-nizations deliver on ther mandates. Issues identified by the Council of Ad-visors may influence the direction of MSSU’s research at both a provincial and regional level as this input will be provided directly to each province’s Provincial Advisory Council (PAC).

The information collected at the Council of Advisor stakeholder engagement sessions will be used by the PACs to inform provincial MSSU research priorities. Each PAC will present their respective Council feedback to the MSSU Executive Committee. The Executive Commit-tee, in collaboration with the MSSU Research Advisory Committee, will identify common areas of concern that support Maritime-wide research initiatives.

Additionally, the MSSU hopes to explore some potential which will connect new research partnership opportunities between the health system stakeholders, researchers, and patients.

Page 3

Volume 3, Issue 1MSSUUpdatesMSSU Council of Advisors

Engagement Sessions

Nova Scotia’s Primary and Integrated Health Care Innovations Network (NS-PIHCI) is now officially up and running. A CIHR SPOR initiative, NS-PIHCI is part of a network of networks supporting evidence-informed transformation and delivery of primary and in-tegrated health care with a focus on people with complex needs. NS-PIHCI provides an opportunity for researchers, policy makers, clinicians, patients and other stakeholders to collaborate in a Canadian research network.

CIHR is creating targeted funding opportunities for the pan-Canadian PIHCI networks. NS-PIHCI members are eligible to apply for these opportunities.

To learn more about NS-PIHCI, upcoming funding opportunities and becoming a mem-ber visit www.nspihci.com. NS-PIHCI is funded by CIHR and NSHRF.

NetworkNews

This quarter, MSSU NB has consulted on 26 projects and the New Brunswick Institute for Research Data and Training (NB-IRDT) has continued to see an increase in ap-plications for projects focused on patient engagement. Additional focus was placed on outreach to researchers in Moncton, Saint John and Fredericton. MSSU delivered presentations to new medical students and various groups of researchers who would benefit from support. NB has also been actively involved in training. MSSU epidemiolo-gist, Dan Crouse, led sessions at the Clin Epi workshop and GIS Users Conference in Halifax and hosted a GIS training session at the University of New Brunswick. There are plans to expand on the training offered in the next year to include more areas of interest to government, students and researchers. This quarter NB-IRDT has acquired two new datasets and updated existing datasets to include additional years.

Following the governance review, the NS Provincial Advisory Committee(PAC) has been working to align to the recommendations. The Terms of Reference has been updated to meet the suggestions from this review and the PAC has reconfigured its member-ship to meet with its expanding mandate. The group has been involved in activities around priority setting leading into the annual MSSU workshop as well as supporting Council of Advisors sessions in each province. In late January, MSSU will release the Small Area Rate Variation report and the PAC is encouraged by its reception from the Department of Health and Wellness, Nova Scotia Health Authority and the IWK Health Centre. This work flows well into a proposed second phase of Small Area Rate Variation research and the development of a Nova Scotia Health Atlas which is now underway.

The efforts for both MSSU demonstration projects are on track. PEI hired a Masters student to provide support with the analysis of the health data for the Breast Cancer Research Demonstration Project. Health PEI is still in the process preparing the data for this work to continue. The Hip and Knee Replacement Surgery Demonstration Project is in its second phase, and our Research Project Manager is working on the outcomes. The Overarching Health Data Sharing Agreement is contingent on the passing of the new Health Information Act in the PEI legislature, which has not yet occurred. The UPEI Secure Island Data Repository (SIDR) is physically completed and will continue with a pilot project for validation of all functionalities. The Internal Committee for the management of secure data is in the final steps of drafting the repository’s respective policies and procedures for the use and maintenance of SIDR. Finally, a Terms of Reference draft was submitted to the PEI Provincial Advisory Com-mittee and is still under review. Committed to support the improvement of healthcare systems and outcomes, MSSU PEI is aiming to pave the way to a healthier future for all Islanders.

NewFaces

Page 4

Volume 3, Issue 1

@maritimespor

MSSUStudentAwards

Pantelis Andreou, PhD Pragmatic Trials Platform LeadDr. Andreou offers a diverse research background that includes Bayesian Statistical Methods, Clinical Trials, Computer Programming, Design and Analysis of Experiments, Meta Analy-sis, Multiple Imputation Data Methods, Multilevel Modelling, Power Analysis/Sample Size Calculation, Statistical Consulting, and Survey Methods. Dr. Andreou is currently involved in

patient-oriented research projects and clinical trials that focus on alternative drug interventions for hip and knee procedures, studying sleep behaviour in children, and post-procedural pain in children. Pan is looking forward to new research avenues offered by this new position at MSSU. Outside of work, Pan has many interesting hobbies outside of work, including: keeping bees, playing violin and working on his vintage Volkswagon Beetle.

Karen McIntosh Research AssistantKaren joined the MSSU team in January of 2015. Karen has a wide research background, with experience in both quan-titative and qualitative research, including costing analyses, Cochrane systematic reviews, focus groups, interviews, and qualitative coding. She holds a Bachelors in Economics from the University of Waterloo and Masters in Economics, with a specialization in health, from the University of Calgary. She is interested in health costing analysis, patient engagement, and mixed methods research.

The Maritime SPOR SUPPORT unit (MSSU) is currently putting the final touches on a new student awards program, poised to enhance support for Maritime students wishing to pursue patient-oriented health research.

The Student Awards will be offered in three administrative pools. A set amount will be available to Dalhousie Research in Medicine students, another similar offering will be made to students in the Atlantic Regional Training Centre partnership, and a third pool of funds will be open to any student who applies directly to the Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit.

More information will be posted as details are made final in the coming weeks. Stay tuned to www.mssu.ca and sign up for our news alerts for updates.