Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

Primary health care research in Canada is carried out through multiple research networks. Research networks serve as learning communities and laboratories for testing different partnership models and approaches to knoweldge application. Our team wanted to describe the emerging role of the Alberta Primary Health Care Research Network (APHCRN) in quality improvement (QI), translation of research into practice, and identifying research priorities in primary health care. We gathered information from the published literature, stakeholder dialogue, and monthly network meetings to identify primary health care research priorities in the province of Alberta. Participants at the stakeholder dialogue included clinician researchers and health policy decision makers. At the dialogue participants deliberated on primary health care research priorities that were presented to them. We adopted Wenger's notion of Communities of Practice (CoP) where knowledge is regarded as a social enterprise at the center of member interactions. Participants agreed on shared values towards the application of reliable evidence, health equity, and attention to healthcare for vulnerable populations. Research Networks are learning communities, proving grounds for evidence-based solutions to pressing system issues and challenges, and engines for improvement of primary health care delivery systems in Canada.