Changing the game for health innovation

By Dr Cy Frank

It's not business as usual for health research in Alberta. For 30 years, Alberta had a model of investment and support for biomedical research that created much needed capacity in the province. It was an innovation for its time and as a result, we attracted world class researchers and clinician-scientists who created a high quality hub of research that continues to this day.

Three decades later, we need to change the game with new approaches to innovation to meet societal demands on every level—health, the health system, social wellbeing, the economy. In a real-time-connected and hyper competitive society, we have to find efficiencies in time, effort and investments to realize transformative results.

My view is that Alberta Innovates- Health Solutions is perfectly positioned as an investor, broker, enabler, and developer of partnerships of value to make things happen differently in our complex health "ecosystem". We are doing just that in three specific areas.

Capacities on a broad scale

The notion of capacity building has changed. We're moving from developing individual capacity to developing the capacity of collaborative efforts and platforms of support that can be widely accessed and have broad impacts.

A great example of this is the launch last fall of Alberta's SPOR SUPPORT Unit, which we are co-funding with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). Focused on developing capacity for patient-oriented research in Alberta and NWT, the unit will build up seven province-wide core "platforms" for research support—tools, methods, data, training —available to researchers working in relevant areas to help them get things done faster, better and more competitively.

The goal is to help researchers attract valuable partners and achieve sustainable peer-reviewed programs of support. We've appointed our platform leads and are opening the unit's doors for business in early 2015.

Another example of capacity building is in the area of performance measurement and health research impact assessment. To understand if investments in research and innovation are working, you need to measure their impact. Only in the last 20 years have people begun to study this in the health world. As yet, there is no single, agreed-upon approach for measuring health research and innovation investment impact. AIHS has developed a clear strategy and we're working with international partners to create global capacity in the discipline.

One of the results of our international partnership is the creation of an International School on Research Impact Assessment (ISRIA). We hosted the second annual four-day impact assessment training course in Banff in September that was attended by 95 people from Canada and around the world. Capacity in impact assessment enables organizations and governments to allocate money efficiently and effectively to improve programs, advocate for better research and innovation of value, and assess what works and what doesn't.

There's a science to it. We will be running smaller workshops in Alberta next year to continue to develop this capacity. We want to get everyone in Alberta on the same page in terms of measuring and classifying impacts, and collecting data to inform the assessment of impacts.

Collaborations

Broad capacity building isn't possible without collaboration. Involving partners in relevant aspects of the research and innovation continuum leads to greater impact, for a community, a province, a country. It's a totally different strategy. Our strategic and funding partners include post-secondary institutions, health care providers, patients, industry, health systems, the public, and government. All have roles to play in developing a dynamic, innovative health ecosystem in Alberta.

In the research and innovation community, collaborations are increasing and are shaping the breadth and pace of activity. We've established milestones by working collectively as a community to harmonize research ethics reviews and streamline clinical research provincially. We're also driving this with new programs unheard of 30 years ago. For example, the Partnerships for Research and Innovation in the Health System (PRIHS) funds the activities of the Strategic Clinical Networks (SCNs)—embedded research and clinical teams—run by Alberta Health Services (AHS), our major partner in this program.

PRIHS focuses on using evidence to find better ways of doing things. It means reassessing technologies, identifying potentially inefficient activities, and eliminating waste in the health system through research that is rapidly translated and disseminated provincially. To create space for innovations, you have to eliminate activities or processes of less value. And system sustainability leads to direct improvement of health outcomes for patients.

We've already co-funded 10 PRIHS projects with AHS. We're now reviewing a second wave and plan to launch an even more robust third wave next year. They will all be co-funded and we are currently soliciting other partners—mainly mid-market enterprises. These companies already sell products and services into the province and also invest upstream in research.

Forging a new research and care dynamic

Over time we'll be rolling out strategic programs to target other parts of the ecosystem. We're getting ready to test drive a comprehensive strategy to accelerate research in innovation and care with four other provincial partners*. We want to ensure research evidence and knowledge feed decisions within the health system and that research addresses problems that healthcare providers and patients face daily. We've begun to change the game by having more "end-users" engaged at the beginning of research.

Our programs should all start by addressing needs—the "pull"—so that the evidence generated by research solves problems. Working collaboratively to integrate resources and solve problems ensures we attract industry, government and other partners who are eager to invest in a winning strategy for improved social and economic outcomes—the "push".

We want to use the dynamic push and pull relationships to accelerate results in Alberta and beyond. Every province and territory is having similar health, social and economic challenges.

While we expand our role to try to demonstrate more direct impacts of heath research in improving health and health care, it's important to note that we will continue to build and support basic and discovery research, the front end of innovation.

The majority of our training budget, for example, is invested in young people pursuing basic science research. We want to build a robust basic research environment that will create more opportunities for "spin-offs". For those discoveries with potential value, we work with our innovation system leaders in government and the private sector to assist with translating discoveries into products, systems and services.

An example of this is a long-standing funding partnership with Pfizer Canada, Western Economic Diversification Canada and the provincial ministry of Innovation and Advanced Education to identify and support early-stage innovations from health research that show promise of technology development.

Our goal is to create a self-improving integrated system where research evidence is used by teams to drive ongoing improvement—a cycle of needs-driven innovations of value from discovery to practice and back again. AIHS is working with our partners to put some of the basic processes in place to allow that to happen.

We recognize that this is a journey of some duration, with bumps along the road, but we have a clear direction and willing passengers. We know, ultimately, that the destination is where we as a province want to be.

*Alberta Health, Alberta Health Services, Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions, Alberta Innovates – Technology Futures, Innovation and Advanced Education

Dr. Cy Frank is president and CEO of Alberta Innovates – Health Solutions.