A Culture Shift from Clinical to Academic Practice: Building a Platform of Inquiry among Health Professionals

Research and innovation is a key component of health professions academic practice and involves the generation and application of new knowledge into the way care is delivered. Typically this type of inquiry is considered practice based research and innovation (PBRI) and is limited to few health professionals that are pursuing an academic track within their professional endeavours rather than embedded into the clinical practice of all health professionals. At Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, an intentional strategy for PBRI was created to drive inquiry at all care levels. The strategy targets building capacity, infrastructure, strategic alignments and patient engagement. Capacity building activities have included programs that support skill development through both a researcher development program and fellowship program. Infrastructure activities have included embedding PBRI within the Sunnybrook Research Institute as part of one of 3 research platforms allowing for recognition and support at senior leadership which has resulted in the establishment of a seed grant program and the development of a Practice-Based Research grid. Strategic alignments have been made with the Professional Practice and the Quality and Patient Safety portfolios with a collaborative leadership model. Patient and family engagement has been integrated throughout PBRI from project relevance to inclusion of patient perspective on research priorities. This multi-pronged approach to PBRI has ensured that that the research being conducted by our health professionals is clinically-aligned, able to focus on current needs of our patients, transferred immediately into practice by the researcher and recognized by the organization for impact and influence.