Ontario is home to a wealth of high quality patient oriented research, with research teams meaningfully partnering with patients, families, caregivers and communities to deliver rigor, relevance and results from their patient oriented research projects. For these findings to change health policy, practice and health outcomes, there is often a need to support end-of-grant knowledge translation activities to build the relationships and push the results to those who can use them to effect real impact and change for Ontario.
EMPOWERING Ontario’s Patient Oriented Research
The EMPOWER Projects opportunity (Engaging Multi-stakeholders for Patient Oriented-research Wider Effects and 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. The purpose of the EMPOWER Projects funding is to complement and complete a project where:
- 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.
Applying for an EMPOWER Project
OSSU has run seven previous EMPOWER Projects opportunity. If you have any questions about applying for any future EMPOWER Project competition, email us at ossu@ossu.ca. When a new opportunity is launched, it will be publicized through OSSU’s website, social media, and health research networks. In addition, a link will be provided here to the new opportunity.
Previously Funded EMPOWER Projects
EMPOWER Phase I
In the first EMPOWER Project competition, OSSU provided four Awards that started on April 1st 2019.
EMPOWER Retinoblastoma: Engaging Patient Partners in Solving the Top 10 Priorities for Eye Cancer Research in Canada
Helen Dimaras, SickKids Hospital
#PartneringForPain: Taking Action Together on Family-Identified Priorities in Pediatric Chronic Pain
Jennifer Stinson, SickKids Hospital
Partner Early, Partner Often: Building a platform for meaningful patient partnership to accelerate “bench-to-bedside” translation of promising new therapies
Manoj Lalu, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute
Participatory ALC: Co‐Designing Strategies to Address Alternate Level of Care (ALC) Challenges – Building Capacity across Ontario
Kerry Kuluski, Sinai Health System
EMPOWER Phase II
In the second EMPOWER Project competition, OSSU provided four Awards that started on October 1st 2019.
Putting shared decision-making into practice -barriers and facilitators to scaling up MyDiabetesPlan into primary care
Catherine Yu, Unity Health
Building Capacity for Patient-Oriented Research (POR) in Clinical Trials, TranSlaTing the Evidence into Practice, Policy and Outcomes: The POR STEPP Digital Health Project in Ontario
Monica Parry, University of Toronto
Implementing sustainable collection of core patient-oriented health outcomes for pediatric inherited metabolic diseases –a multi-stakeholder workshop
Beth Potter, University of Ottawa
”This is about my health”: Digital tools to improve healthcare communication for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD)
Yona Lunsky, Centre for Addictions and Mental Health
EMPOWER Phase III
In the third EMPOWER Project competition, OSSU provided four Awards related to COVID-19 implications in Ontario that started in Autumn 2020.
“Wellness Quest: A health literacy and self-advocacy tool developed by youth for youth mental health“
Joanna Henderson, Centre for Addictions and Mental Health
“Ontario First Nations Aging Study: from data to impact”
Jennifer Walker, Laurentian University
“Understanding COVID-19 among children and families”
Jonathon Maguire, Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute of St. Michael’s Hospital, Unity Health Toronto
“Ensuring equity and inclusion in virtual care best practices to support vulnerable populations of youth with chronic pain”
Jennifer Stinson, SickKids Hospital
EMPOWER Phase IV
In the fourth EMPOWER Project competition, OSSU provided three Awards that started on March 1st, 2021.
“The RB Research Booklet: A Catalyst for Patient Involvement in Retinoblastoma Research”
Helen Dimaras
“Transplant Ambassador Program: Patients helping patients access kidney transplants”
Kyla Naylor
“Co-building Equity-Mobilizing Partnerships in Community (EMPaCT) to increase impact through equitable patient-oriented partnerships in research, policy and practice”
Ambreen Sayani
EMPOWER Phase V
In the fifth EMPOWER Project competition, OSSU provided five Awards that started on January 1st, 2022.
“Partnering with communities for children’s COVID-19 vaccination”
Shelley Vanderhout and Jonathon Maguire
“Empowering patient ambassadors to champion research outcomes that are a priority for people who have lived experience with venous thromboembolism”
Carol West and Lisa Duffett
“Taking action on the top 10 patient-oriented priorities in pediatric hospital care in Canada”
Peter Gill and Sanjay Mahant
“Enhancing patient engagement in economic evaluation of health care interventions”
Kednapa Thavron and Justin Presseau
“Co-creation of a framework to engage patients in preclinical laboratory research“
Manoj Lalu and Dawn Richards
EMPOWER Phase VI
OSSU awarded four EMPOWER Projects during the Phase VI competition, that started in Winter 2023.
“Empowering action: Partnerships for Translating Evidence on Long COVID and Episodic Disability to Enhance Rehabilitation (ParTELER Project)”
Kelly O’Brien, Hannah Wei and Darren Brown
“From questions to answers: Creation of meaningful, patient-orientated research to address the top unanswered research questions in Venous Thromboembolism- the Clot Top 10 priorities.”
Carol West and Lisa Duffett
“Fostering a Commitment to Care for People Aging with HIV (CtC HIV)”
Kate Murzin and Sharon Walmsley
“My lived experience matters”: Working with people with disabilities to improve the accessibility of pregnancy care”
Hilary Brown
EMPOWER Phase VII
OSSU awarded four EMPOWER Projects during the Phase VII competition, that started in Winter 2024.
“Spinal Cord Injury (SCI) Research Advocacy Course Engagement Strategy“
Sukhvinder Kalsi-Ryan, Barry Munro, and Gabriela Ocampo
“Creating Safe Connections in Francophone Official Language Minority Communities: A knowledge mobilization project to increase accessibility and cultural relevance of an e-learning module co-designed to improve equity at the point-of-access to care.”
Ambreen Sayani and Jackie Manthorne
“Enhancing Patient-Centered Care and Learning through CPIN-LEAP: Mobilizing Patient Knowledge for Scalable Educational Modules in Primary Care and Learning System”
Douglas Archibald, Maddie Venables, Sharon Johnston, William Hogg, Emilie Lamontagne, and Kimberly Grattan
“Equitable preventive care recommendation implementation”
Nav Persaud, Aisha Lofters, and Ambreen Sayani