Ottawa has joined the governments of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and P.E.I. to provide a total of $16.1 million in funding and in-kind support for the Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit.
SPOR is the Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research, a pan-Canadian initiative dedicated to integrating the voices of patients in research and health care.
New Brunswick Health Minister Dorothy Shephard said this initiative integrates patient voices in research and health care.
“For every dollar our government invests in research, we get a five-dollar return in economic spinoff and jobs. This kind of investment in the knowledge economy attracts world-class clinicians to our province and supports a health system where evidence is used to inform the care we provide,” Shephard said.
Shephard joined her federal counterpart, Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos, for the announcement in Fredericton on Thursday.
Duclos said in order to provide high-quality health care to Canadians, we need research evidence to tell us what works.
“Patients, caregivers, and families help get at this evidence by adding their lived experience to the research process. When patients, researchers, and health-care professionals combine their expertise and experience, that’s when we are truly able to make a difference in patients’ lives,” Duclos said.
The Maritime SPOR SUPPORT Unit has contributed to 56 projects related to COVID-19.
One study supported a better understanding of how the needs of patients and primary-care providers are being met including what lessons COVID has provided about improving the way people access primary care.
