Respiratory Health Network Newsletter #2, July 2022
In this newsletter….
Network news: Join the network advisory committee
People: Researcher profile (Dr. Laura Struik) | Asset map of respiratory research
Projects: IMPACT Project profile | Seeking stories of collaboration | COPD & Asthma Summit
Opportunities: Collaborate on a Health System Policy Grant application
Events: Toward Unity for Health conference | BC Lung Foundation workshop recordings
Network news
The BC Respiratory Health Network (RespNetBC) enables collaboration for research and knowledge translation in respiratory health.
Join the network advisory committee
Are you interested in helping shape the network? We are looking for representatives to join the RespNetBC Advisory Committee. As a founding member of the RespNetBC Advisory Committee, you will
– Help shape BC’s first province-wide respiratory research and care network.
– Inform the network’s initial strategic direction.
This infographic outlines the tentative plans for Year 1.
Advisory committee members will
– Inform strategic planning for network.
– Identify potential champions to take leadership roles and help establish partnerships.
– Promote the network in your region, to your peers, on social media, or in other networks.
– Identify and/or lead working “clusters” that can leverage the network to further research or implementation around topics of common interest.
– Shape planned events such as dialogues or the inaugural annual conference.
– Identify topics and speakers for knowledge exchange events.
– Identify potential funding opportunities.
The committee will be a diverse group of approximately 5–10 people from across sectors and roles, areas of expertise, demographics, geographic regions, career stage, and the spectrum of research from basic discovery to implementation.
Advisory committee members will
– Participate in monthly 1-hour Zoom meetings for 6 months to launch the network.
– Attend an in-person planning session in fall 2022, if feasible.
Legacy for Airway Health and the Centre for Lung Health at Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute will provide initial administrative support for advisory committee and network activities.
Please contact Karen Rideout, Network Coordinator for more information, to express interest, or share ideas. Email karen.rideout@vch.ca | Phone/text 604-306-3571.
People
Researcher profile: Dr. Laura Struik
Dr. Laura Struik is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the University of British Columbia Okanagan’s School of Nursing, and a Canadian Cancer Society Emerging Scholar. With expertise in health behaviour change, qualitative research, and digital technology interventions such as smartphone apps and social media, Dr. Struik is leading an innovative program of research aimed at generating and implementing youth-driven evidence to address tobacco use among young Canadians. With her team, she pushes the boundaries of traditional approaches to understand the psychology of behaviour change, establish the physiological impacts of vaping on lung health, understand the role of socio-environmental influences on tobacco use behaviours, and identify how to leverage digital technologies for youth health promotion.
Dr. Struik runs the Youth Health Promotion and Cancer Prevention Lab, which includes employment and mentorship of a range of undergraduate and graduate students. Building the capacity of tobacco control researchers and advocates is a key priority in her work. In addition to her commitment to training competitive young researchers to represent the field of tobacco control, Laura is also committed to building diverse partnerships with other scholars in her field, youth groups, community organizations, and healthcare providers invested in youth health promotion across the country.
Asset Map of Respiratory Health Research in BC
At the first network event, Finding Research Synergies in Respiratory Disease Prevention and Care (Jan 2022), we started to compile an asset map of respiratory research and researchers. Version 1 is included on page 3 of the event summary. We are compiling a searchable inventory of people involved in respiratory research as a tool to facilitate connections and collaboration across British Columbia. We will send a survey link later this summer to collect information from researchers, patient and community partners, clinicians, and knowledge users who wish to be included in the directory.
Projects
Project profile: IMPACT
The IMPACT (IMplementing Predictive Analytics towards efficient COPD Treatments) project, led by co-principle investigators Dr. Mohsen Sadatsafavi (UBC PharmSci) and Dr. Don Sin (UBC Medicine), is using a networked approach to move along the translational continuum from identifying a knowledge gap through implementing new research into clinical care.
The ACCEPT acute COPD exacerbation prediction tool was previously developed by members of the IMPACT team in response to systematic reviews that highlighted the lack of a high quality, validated risk prediction tool for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). BC is going through a phased implementation of a harmonized electronic health records (EHR) system, which the investigators saw as an excellent opportunity to push for shared decision-making and precision medicine for COPD, powered by EHR.
In order to support implementation of the ACCEPT tool, they brought together a multi-disciplinary team in 2020. Their goal was to test and evaluate use of ACCEPT in practice from multiple perspectives: connect with information technology departments around technical feasibility, tailor to clinician needs and constraints, ensure responsiveness to patient concerns and questions, work with clinic staff to establish logistics, and partner with professional organizations who will make clinical recommendations. They incorporated implementation science and applied equity, sex, and gender lenses to the plan. This collective effort led to a strong team and a successful, highly rated team grant proposal.
IMPACT Phase 1 involved patient partners to help develop prototypes of ACCEPT that were then tested in clinician-patient interactions. The ACCEPT tool, EHR interface, and supplementary materials for patient education and follow-up were revised and ACCEPT 2.0 will soon be released. The next phase, starting this fall, is a multi-site clinical trial of the revised ACCEPT tool. Further collaboration with knowledge users such as Clinical & Systems Transformation (CST), administrators, clinic managers, and others will help ensure scaled up implementation.
Seeking stories of collaboration
Has collaboration helped you overcome a research, knowledge translation, or implementation challenge? Have you connected outside your discipline or area of expertise to solve problems or generate new ideas? We want to hear examples of innovative approaches that worked for you.
1. How have you engaged people from other sectors or used different types of knowledge or expertise to make research more meaningful?
2. Where have dialogue or partnerships strengthened the quality of your research?
3. How has research been used in practice to improve respiratory health or healthcare?
4. When have networks, mentorships, or working groups helped drive, strengthen, or use research evidence?
Email karen.rideout@vch.ca to share an example or lessons learned.
Re-imagining COPD and asthma prevention and care: LAH Summit Series Summary
Legacy for Airway Health (LAH) hosted a COPD & Asthma Care Summit Series over 4 days from March 15 to May 30. LAH synthesized evidence and input from patients, care providers, researchers, administrators, government, and nonprofit organizations to identify nine goals for improving prevention and care of asthma and COPD in the Vancouver Coastal Health region. You can download a graphic summary of Summit Series here.
Session recordings are available online:
Day 1 (Mar 15) A look inside the data
Day 2 (April 4) Clarifying the vision
Day 3 (April 29) Forward thinking research and solutions
Day 4 (May 30) Putting the pieces together
Opportunities
Health system policy grant (applications due October 4)
CIHR has recently launched a Catalyst Grant: Policy Research for Health System Transformation. “This funding opportunity supports Policy Research for Health System Transformation grants, including retrospective policy evaluations or prospective policy development/implementation, that generate evidence to inform macro-level policies to support high-performing health care and public health systems in Canada with the aim of advancing the [Quintuple] Aim.”
Researchers from UBC and Legacy for Airway Health (LAH) have expressed interest in this grant to use health outcomes data to create policy options that could strengthen the BC Smoking Cessation Program. The group has connected with PharmaCare following two internal evaluations (2020 Report, 2020 Summary, 2015 Report). If you are interested in this concept, please contact erin.shellington@ubc.ca by July 29 for an informal discussion of possibilities.
Events
Conference (August 16–19, 2022 | Vancouver)
Toward Unity for Health 2022 – Moving Forward Together: Unity for Health for All – is co-hosted by The Network: Towards Unity for Health (TUFH), BC Patient Safety & Quality Council, and Rural Coordination Centre of BC. Registration closes July 17.
BC Lung Air Quality and Health Workshop (recording now available)
The June 2022 workshop theme was ‘Gimme Shelter’ – Adapting the Indoor Environment to Reduce the Harmful Impacts of Climate Change. Details, slides, and session recordings are available on the BC Lung Foundation website.
We are working on a membership structure for RespNetBC. Please stay tuned for more information and options to join or continue to receive news and updates.
