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In our current health system climate in Ontario, patient-oriented research is more important than ever in informing practice and policy. Collaboration with and orienting research to patient engagement affects the implementation of changes in the health services, health policy, and for clinical and public health research. In this integration and intersection between patient engagement, research, data, and implementation, Ontario is moving towards a learning health system for transformational change with deliberate collaboration at and across the system and local levels with systematic use of evidence in and for practice.

Fairness or equity in health care and health outcomes can be promoted through patient-oriented research. As outlined in OSSU’s Fairness is Excellence Framework, a research project can promote health equity when they are designed and conducted with equity in mind, when patients or members of the public who reflect the diversity of the actual population are meaningfully engaged, and teams are formed fairly. This includes engaging equitably with various marginalized population such as rural and remote populations, Francophones, Indigenous populations, newcomers and members of the LGBTQ2+ community.

The EMPOWER Projects opportunity (Engaging Multi-stakeholders for Patient Oriented research Wider Effects & Reach) provides a structure (integrating the Ontario SPOR SUPPORT Unit and its Research Centres and Initiatives) and funding (up to $25,000) to allow existing patient-oriented research projects that require additional support to have impacts for a maximum duration of one-year. Applications are invited from research teams that have completed or are completing patient-oriented research studies that have include patient partnership and a commitment to enhancing patient, caregiver, and/or community outcomes and that can demonstrate that:

• Additional funding is needed to bring in patient/caregiver partners for the co-creation and co-development of activities and outputs for more streamlined dissemination and implementation of the project’s findings or recommendations and;
• This investment may have beneficial impacts for the health of Ontarians and the Ontario health system.

OSSU welcomes co-designed, with patient and caregiver partnership, submissions that relate to one or more of the following 3 priorities that advance the objectives of OSSU for the development of capacity and sustainability of POR in Ontario:

1. Equity with a focus on: Improving health equity through using data OR equitable access to and use of health data;
2. Mobilizing knowledge with diverse populations and minorities including/not exclusive to rural and remote communities, linguistic groups including/not exclusive to Francophone community partners, Indigenous community partners for health decision and policy-making purposes
3.  A project that demonstrates the advancement of the quintuple aim (improved patient experience, improved population health outcomes, advances in health equity, lower costs, and improved provider experience) in situating the mobilization of knowledge within a learning health system.

The application and impact of the work should be relevant and tailored to the needs of stakeholders in the province (from patients to healthcare practitioners, to health policy and the health system).

Proposals are to be submitted electronically to OSSU via email to ossu@ossu.ca by 5:00 pm Eastern on Wednesday November 8^th, 2023. For any questions and for submitting the proposal, please include RFP – EMPOWER Projects VII – attn Hilary Edelstein in the subject line.