On December 7, members of the Providence Health Care research community gathered in the Gourlay conference room at the Centre for Heart Lung Innovation at St. Paul’s Hospital for coffee, lunch and a very important conversation about the future of our organization.

After a presentation about PHC’s 7-year strategic plan, participants broke into groups to discuss several big questions that will guide our organization’s work until 2026.

Several key insights came up during the engagement session:

  • Active clinical programs are necessary in order to study patients and we have to brand ourselves as a good place to do clinical research.
  • We have an inquisitive and collaborative environment and should maintain this.
  • The new St. Paul’s must consider space for research and research expansion. We should work with UBC as we build the new research facility.
  • There’s no way SPH can do everything, so we must focus on set clinical areas (i.e. heart/lung, HIV/AIDS) and use those patients to advance research.
  • It’s important to maintain our areas of research specialization, otherwise we will have to compete for funding and resources with other institutions.
  • Encourage temporary students and post-docs to stay before they move on to other research institutions.
  • To retain good people, we need salary support for mid- and senior-level investigators. Younger generations of researchers are attracted to work with senior researchers they admire.
  • Patient access at St. Paul’s is good and we are able to conduct clinical trials well here. We wouldn’t be able to conduct clinical trials as well outside the hospital.
  • We have to be physically connected to the hospital and clinicians and researchers must work on the same site. UBC is a “dead zone” clinically because there is poor patient access.

* Please note: these are but a few of the comments heard and ideas discussed – all sentiments were fully captured by the facilitators and will be rolled up into the findings shared with SLT.

This recent session with researchers and research staff is part of a series of facilitated engagement sessions across PHC where employees, patients, residents, family members, clinicians, researchers and volunteers are invited to weigh in on the creation of a new 7-year strategic plan (2019 – 2026) for the organization.

Do you have ideas that you’d like to contribute to our pursuit of world class? Tell us online until December 31! https://bloomprovidencehealthcare.org/

Registering on Bloom adds your voice to this important conversation, and enters your name in a draw to win some excellent prizes. See what’s up for grabs: https://bloomprovidencehealthcare.org/story-page-test/news_feed/add-your-voice-win-a-prize