Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

Continuity Of Care; Family Caregivers; Frail Seniors; Meta-Narrative Synthesis; Patient-Reported Experience Measures; Patient-Reported Outcome Measures; Transitions In Care

<html> <body> <p>As we confront the unprecedented aging of our Canadian population, there is pressing need for strategic, cross-sector care of the frail elderly whose healthcare costs are 4.5 times greater than adults 20-64 years old.^1-2 While being in a state of increased vulnerability and risk, frail seniors often live at home and receive healthcare from community, acute, and outpatient services.³ As more elderly Canadians are living with prolonged chronic illnesses, our healthcare system is pressed to support their journey across the care continuum involving multiple healthcare sectors.<br> <br>Patient- and family-centered care necessitates that seniors&rsquo; healthcare experiences and perceived outcomes be considered across all transitions of care. This requires the integration and routine use of information from appropriate patient- and family-centered measurement instruments within the dominant sectors of care where most transitions for the older adult population occur.⁴ <br> <br> <strong>Accordingly, the collaboratively defined <u>purpose</u> of our meta-narrative review is to synthesize the research regarding the selection and use of patient- and family&ndash;reported experience and outcome measures in sectors of care where there are breakdowns in continuity across transitions of care for frail seniors who are living at home and for their families.</strong> <br> <br>This project emerged from a collaboration between clinical and healthcare administration knowledge users (KUs) and researchers who conducted a knowledge synthesis of patient- and family-reported outcome and experience measures for older adults in acute care.⁵ The project will be led in partnership between the <u>Principal KU</u>, Director of Patient-Centred Performance Measurement &amp; Improvement in BC Ministry of Health (MOH), the <u>PI</u> - Canada Research Chair in Patient-Reported Outcomes, and the <u>co-PI</u> who brings expertise in patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) and knowledge syntheses. The <u>team</u> includes KUs from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), the New Brunswick (NB) Health Council-Performance Measurement, and practitioners and researchers with expertise in PROMs, patient-reported experience measures (PREMs), and knowledge synthesis.<br> <br> <u>Meta-narrative review</u> is an established approach to knowledge synthesis. It offers information from different stakeholder perspectives⁶ that specifically addresses the needs of policy developers and leaders. Using meta-narrative review, we will produce a &ldquo;storyline&rdquo;⁷ that represents an analysis of stakeholders perspectives (e.g., research traditions and paradigms) explaining how and why certain PROMs and PREMs are selected, valued, and used to inform continuity^8-9 of healthcare for frail seniors who are living at home. The synthesis will also include a comparison of psychometric and administrative characteristics of PROMs and PREMs for this population.<br> <br>The project will be guided by <u>integrated knowledge translation (KT)</u> involving the KUs and other influential national stakeholders (including, the Change Foundation and pan-Canadian Interjurisdictional Committee on Patient Satisfaction; see letters of support). Findings will be published according to the publication standards for meta-narrative reviews.¹⁰ Ultimately, this synthesis will provide evidence and corresponding recommendations regarding the use of PROMs and PREMs to improve patient- and family-centered care across transitions of care for frail older adults and their family members who are living at home.</p> </body> </html>