Strengthening Primary Care Research Partnerships at Vancouver Coastal Health: Connecting Operational Priorities with the BC Research Community

Opportunity/Gap: Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH), Vancouver Community (VC) primary care delivers team-based care to populations with complex biopsychosocial needs across community health centres in the city of Vancouver, responding to pressures including the toxic drug crisis, climate-related events, and the care of older adults. Operational and clinical staff regularly encounter questions about care quality, access, and workforce capacity that would benefit from research partnership, but VC primary care has limited relationships with the BC primary care research community and few pathways for translating operational questions into collaborative research. Strengthening these connections is central to VCH’s Learning Health System direction and the primary care program’s work with VCHRI to build embedded research capacity.
Format: Two facilitated half-day sessions, in person at a VCH site, within the August to November funding window.
Session 1 (internal): 10 to 15 VCH primary care operational leaders, clinicians, and program staff, joined by two patient partners and two to three primary care researchers. Small-group discussion and priority-mapping will translate operational priorities into a shared set of research questions, producing a written summary that grounds Session 2.
Session 2 (cross-institutional): 25 to 30 participants, including the VCH primary care team articulating its priorities to a targeted invited audience of BC-based primary care researchers from VCH-affiliated programs and partner institutions including SFU and UBC, alongside patient partners and VCHRI representatives. Facilitated small-group discussion will identify shared interests and surface specific opportunities for collaborative research.
EDI considerations: VCH primary care serves populations facing structural inequities, including people experiencing homelessness, people who use drugs, Indigenous community members, and older adults with complex care needs. Patient partners participate in both sessions to ensure these perspectives inform the priorities surfaced. Researcher recruitment will prioritize diverse expertise and institutional representation.
Anticipated outcomes: A documented set of research priorities reflecting operational needs and patient partner perspectives; new and strengthened relationships between VCH primary care staff and BC primary care researchers; and identified opportunities for follow-on collaborative research.