The Choosing Wisely Canada Implementation Research Network (CWC-IRN) is a group of researchers, health care professionals, patient advisors, and policymakers. This group involves provincial and territorial Choosing Wisely campaigns along with implementation researchers to establish a Canadian learning health care system on implementation science. It aims to develop and evaluate programs for implementing Choosing Wisely Canada recommendations in Canadian health care settings, as well as to provide a network to facilitate sharing the learned experiences.
Our Mission:
We aim to develop and evaluate programs for implementing Choosing Wisely Canada recommendations in real-world health care settings to provide practical guidance to Canadian health care systems.
Our Goals:
De/Implement is a monthly webinar series that focuses on implementation science and applying practical methodology to reduce unnecessary overuse of health care resources. Visit our events page for upcoming webinars or click on the recorded versions available below.
Ongoing projects:
Meetings:
Tools and materials
Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw is trained as a family physician prior to undertaking a PhD in health services research at the University of Aberdeen. His research focuses on the evaluation of interventions to disseminate and implement evidence-based practice. Dr. Grimshaw is a Senior Scientist, Clinical Epidemiology Program, Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, a Full Professor in the Department of Medicine, University of Ottawa and a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Health Knowledge Transfer and Uptake. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and a Corresponding Fellow of the Royal College of Edinburgh. He was formerly the Director of Cochrane Canada and the Co-coordinating Editor of the Cochrane Effective Practice and Organisation of Care group. He is the President of the Board of the Campbell Collaboration.
Dr. Andrea Patey is a Senior Clinical Research Associate within the Centre for Implementation Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and an Assistant Professor (Adjunct) at Queen’s University in Kingston. She holds a PhD in Health Psychology from City, University of London. Her interests in Knowledge Translation and Implementation Research include the application of psychology theories and methods to explain and change health professional behaviours across a range of clinical settings. Andrea’s interest in behaviour change focuses specifically around whether de-implementation differs from implementation and if interventions to address each should be designed targeting the possible differences. The broad objectives of her research are to promote the use of theory and rigorous methods to improve the delivery of evidence-based healthcare through the development and evaluation of complex behaviour change interventions.
Dr. Wendy Levinson is Chair of Choosing Wisely Canada. She is also Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Dr. Levinson is a national and international expert in the field of physician-patient communication and, in particular, on the disclosure of medical errors to patients. Dr. Levinson has led efforts to educate and engage medical students, residents and faculty members in patient safety, quality improvement, and the stewardship of finite resources. She was a member of the ABIM Foundation Board of Trustees when they created the Choosing Wisely campaign in the United States.
Dr. Shawn Dowling is the Assistant Dean of the Physician Learning Program and a Quality Improvement Scientist at the Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary in Alberta. His research interests include identifying gaps in care, resource stewardship and the use of Audit and Feedback as a tool to improve the quality of care delivered. Dr. Dowling enjoys the rewards of working in a multi-disciplinary team that is leading the way on applying rigorous methodology to challenging clinical questions using health administrative data with the ultimate goal of improving patient outcomes and supporting physicians. Dr. Dowling is the Project Lead in Alberta for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Innovative Clinical Trial (iCT) trial on reducing unnecessary imaging for lower back pain and pre-operative testing.
Dr. Sacha Bhatia is Evaluation Lead for Choosing Wisely Canada. Dr. Bhatia is a clinical cardiologist and Chief Medical Innovation Officer at Women’s College Hospital. He also serves as Assistant Professor in Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto and at the Institute for Health Policy Management and Evaluation. Dr. Sacha Bhatia, F.M. Hill Chair in Health System Solutions, is studying appropriateness of care, digital health innovations and health service design to influence policy that will improve the delivery of care to patients.
Dr. Eric Bohm is an orthopaedic surgeon and professor of surgery at the University of Manitoba, specializing in primary and revision hip and knee replacement surgery. He has provincial responsibilities for hip and knee central intake, orthopaedic standards and quality, and the provincial joint replacement registry. He also serves as the Director of Systems Performance at the George and Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation, and is the Clinical Sponsor for Choosing Wisely Manitoba.
Dr. Amanda Hall is an Assistant Professor at the Primary Healthcare Research Unit (PHRU), Memorial University of Newfoundland. She is also the Knowledge Translation Academic Advisor for Newfoundland and Labrador’s SPOR Primary and Integrated Health Care Innovation Network. She holds a PhD in Medicine from the University of Sydney (in conjunction with the George Institute for Global Health) which focused on the effects of exercise on musculoskeletal pain. Her post-doctoral work at the University College of Dublin and the University of Oxford focused on methods for implementing evidence-based guidelines into practice – primarily related to chronic musculoskeletal pain. Amanda leads a program of research that intersects musculoskeletal health, implementation science, and knowledge translation. Her work is largely concentrated on improving the management of low back pain and arthritis using biopsychosocial interventions and by improving uptake of evidence-based guidelines and building robust partnerships with knowledge users to narrow the evidence-practice gap.
Dr. Hayden received her PhD in Clinical Epidemiology from the University of Toronto, Department of Health Policy, Management & Evaluation and joined Dalhousie faculty in 2008. Dr. Hayden leads the successful Back Pain Evidence Synthesis and Translation research program. Her research experience and expertise include evidence synthesis methods, knowledge translation and implementation science, prognostic research, and musculoskeletal health.
Dr. Sarah Cook is the Territorial Medical Director of the Northwest Territories Health and Social Services Authority, and has been a Family Physician in Yellowknife for the past eleven years. She has a keen interest in appropriateness and led the team that launched Choosing Wisely NWT. Originally from Nova Scotia, Sarah loves sailing, skiing, running and exploring the north with her three kids and husband.
Jesseca Tolan is a territorial Quality and Risk Lead for the Government of Nunavut’s Department of Health. She has a clinical background in emergency and critical care and has experience conducting quality improvement and patient safety initiatives in multiple sectors. Jesseca received her Masters of Science in Nursing from McMaster University where she was able to explore quality improvement, high reliability organizations, and nursing situational awareness and decision making. Other special interests include human factors, cognitive systems engineering, health systems integration and innovation, and organizational culture and leadership.
Dr. Emily G. McDonald is an assistant professor of medicine at the McGill University Health Centre. She is a Fonds de santé recherche- Québec funded scientist whose research focuses on polypharmacy, deprescribing and high value healthcare. She has a Masters of epidemiology from McGill University and completed post-graduate training in quality improvement and patient safety. She is the co-founder of MedSafer, an electronic deprescribing software for managing polypharmacy in the elderly. At the McGill University Health Centre she is the director of Clinical Practice Assessment Unit.
Dr. Gary Groot is a clinical co-lead with the Ministry of Health’s appropriateness program, Director of Surgical Oncology at the University of Saskatchewan, and member of the national quality committee of both the Canadian Partnership against Cancer and the American Head and Neck Association. Dr. Groot also holds the Chair of the Equity Advisory Committee with the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer (CPAC).
Dr. Owen Averill is a family physician practicing in Whitehorse, Yukon since 2013. He completed his medical training and residency at the University of Ottawa. Dr. Averill has been the Choosing Wisely Yukon Clinical Lead since 2015 and is the acting Implementation Lead for Yukon.
Stefanie Linklater is a Research Program Manager in the Centre for Implementation Research at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and has been at the OHRI since 2011. Stefanie holds an Honors Bachelor of Science in Biopharmaceutical Science and a Master of Science in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, both from the University of Ottawa. Working for Dr. Jeremy Grimshaw, she is responsible for managing his overall research program, including the international Audit & Feedback MetaLab collaboration and the OHRI’s Centre for Implementation Research. Stefanie is responsible for managing the Choosing Wisely Canada Implementation Research Network (CWC-INR) and facilitates the network’s webinar series.
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