Showcasing the Health Innovation Portal in Vancouver

Last week, we demonstrated the Health Innovation Portal for the first time at Pharmacare 2020 (February 26-27) and the BC Quality Forum (February 28-March 1).

Pharmacare 2020 hosted 225 participants from academia, the pharmaceutical industry and government. The keynote speakers were Dr. Steve Morgan and Dr. Michael Law.

The BC Quality Forum hosted 640 people with participants ranging from managers of regional health authorities, providers, researchers, government analysts and consultants. Keynote speakers included Jim Easton and Steven Lewis.

We decided to demonstrate the Health Innovation Portal to attendees at these conferences using our new iPad kiosks. People seemed eager to give it a try, searching for practices that might interest them and learning how to navigate the portal.

Participants had lots of questions for us, so we thought we’d answer a few of the most common ones here:

How does the Health Council identify innovative practices? We’ve developed an Innovative Practices Evaluation Framework™ to support the identification of practices. The Framework categorizes innovative practices as “emerging,” “promising,” or “leading” based on four evaluation criteria: quality of evidence, impact, applicability and transferability.

How can I submit a practice to be included on the Portal? To submit a practice, download and complete the Innovative Practice Submission Form and send it to us at: innovation@healthcouncilcanada.ca. Based on the information you provide, we’ll evaluate the practice using our Innovative Practices Evaluation Framework™, then categorize the practice as emerging, promising or leading and get back to you with the results.
We will use the information you submit to prepare a description of the practice in the HIP’s designated format.

Is there an evaluation planned for the Portal? A formal evaluation of the Health Innovation Portal is currently being planned and will include a user survey and interviews to measure whether the Portal is adding value to our audience and providing high quality, contextual information on Canadian health innovative practices. You can provide feedback by completing our online survey in April.

Thanks again to everyone who came to visit! Next up, we’ll be attending the Saskatchewan Health Care Quality Summit 2013 conference on April 10-11, so please do drop by and give the portal a try.