Every day, thousands of primary care providers head to the front lines of healthcare in Canada. They're by our sides for moments big and small, motivated by a singular vision: to help everyone lead happier, healthier lives. At McMaster, healthcare is in our DNA. 50 years ago, our medical school revolutionized healthcare education.

And for over a decade, the Department of Family Medicine has been reimagining primary care research, providing critical insights and pushing toward a brighter world for us all. Introducing the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative, an incubator focused on advancing and strengthening primary care in Canada. Through clinical programs, practice, policy and resident education.

Building on our established excellence and our network of experts, the Collaborative is launching with a $4 million investment to enhance primary care research in Canada. Primary care is the most important part of the healthcare system. This Collaborative will help us to develop innovative models of care and education to improve and reimagine how primary care is delivered in the future.

The Collaborative is open to everyone, from experienced researchers to primary care clinicians looking to start. Bring your question to us, and work with expert faculty and highly trained staff to find the answers. Our department has grown tremendously over the last decade, along with our divisions of emergency medicine and palliative care.

We've become internationally recognized for our excellence in teaching, research and in clinical care. Thanks to a really generous contribution of a million dollars from David Braley, we are able to launch this collaborative which will improve the care that we both provide and receive. With supports for capacity development, mentorship, networking and research, our aim is to light the pathways to discovery, whether your question is big or small.

Primary care is critical to support people in our region, but it's also an area of research that is globally important. This is a collaborative, this is an effort to pull people together to answer really important questions in primary care, which will absolutely result in improved patient outcomes. In Canada, healthcare is more than an occupation, it's a calling.

Help solve tomorrow's challenges today. Be a part of the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative. And together, we'll re-imagine primary care for better health and a brighter world.

In Canada, many of our seniors live in subsidized or social housing. And while life on a low income presents its own set of challenges, the healthcare conditions that come with age often lead to more trips to the emergency room and more calls to 911. At the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative, we believe in research that empowers participants and improves quality of life.

That's why we support Community Paramedicine@Clinic, an innovative, evidence-based chronic disease prevention and health promotion program. CP@Clinic puts community health programming into subsidized housing across Ontario by having specially trained paramedics hold drop-in sessions where seniors live. They assess residents' health risks and provide tailored health education, connecting older adults with primary care and community resources to improve health and quality of life.

Community paramedics were seen as approachable and accessible healthcare providers who could bridge the gap between emergency and family practice. Seniors just love paramedics. They love the uniforms. They love talking to them. And it just works really well. CP@Clinic has seen huge success with the results from two randomized trials showing that 911 calls were reduced by 20%.

35% of paramedic services in Ontario are now running the program, which continues to expand provincially and nationally. My hope for CP@Clinic is that it will continue to fill the gap for low-income seniors living in social housing, so that they are able to lead more empowered and fulfilling lives. In so doing, we'll actually reduce the burden on the healthcare system in Canada and perhaps internationally. We'll see you next time.

In Canada, most of us expect to have quality healthcare available when we need it. But for the older adults among us, that's often not the case. Seniors living alone or with mobility issues can have a hard time getting to their family doctor. Providing quality care to this vulnerable population has become one of today's biggest healthcare challenges.

At the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative, we believe in research that enhances the timeliness and quality of care that people receive. That's why we support Health Tapestry, a research program that strengthens the fabric of our communities by connecting healthcare teams to older adults. During in-home visits, community volunteers learn about what matters most to a client, tracking their health and life goals with customized software.

This information is then passed on to the client's primary healthcare team, allowing care providers to learn more about their patients and help them stay healthy longer. When was the last time your family doctor came over to your house and had tea and really understood what was important to you? Family docs just don't have that kind of time, but it's great to have that kind of information from our patients.

And that's what the volunteers provide. We usually start our health visits, our doctor visits, by saying, "What's the matter with you?" Health Tapestry asks what matters to you, and those are the gaps we're trying to fill. Now in its second stage of trials, Tapestry has had tremendous success and expanded beyond their initial scope into six Ontario communities, with partners from across Canada adapting the Health Tapestry approach in their own communities.

We know that the primary healthcare team is critical in the health of the population. Health Tapestry really tries to leverage and innovate within that model. We need to stop thinking about ageing as a disease and start thinking of it as a success in Canada. By allowing older adults to be in charge of their own care, when their care is delivered, where it's delivered and how it's delivered. That's how Health Tapestry is attempting to make this a brighter world.

Each year, over 40,000 people spend time in Ontario's prison system, many with significant medical conditions like mental illness, infection and addiction. Access to health care during incarceration is a human right and can support people who experience incarceration in improving their health and well-being. At the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative, we believe in research that informs and shapes policy and provides continuity of care for all Canadians.

That's why we support the Prison Health Research Program. Combining routinely collected health care information with the lived experiences of people who've worked or spent time in prison, researchers have revealed new insights into health care challenges faced by people who've experienced incarceration. In the work that I do, I try to provide high-quality care for the patients that I see in the jail as a family physician.

Everyone in our community in Ontario should have access to high-quality health care, and that's not necessarily the case. So how can we include people who experience incarceration in our efforts to improve access to high-quality health care, I think is a real focus for me. Dr. Kiyumjin's research is already saving lives.

Her work has contributed to the distribution of naloxone kits to stem the tide of overdose deaths among people recently released from prison. My hope is that the research I work on leads to improved care for people who experience incarceration and also imagining and building a world where we don't have prisons and where people are not incarcerated. People who experience incarceration are some of the least well-off people in our society, and if we can support people who have the greatest needs and meeting those needs, that's good for all of us. It makes for a happier, healthier society.

For many older Canadians, taking multiple medications is a routine part of daily life. But while they're prescribed with purpose, taking five or more daily often causes unintended adverse effects, resulting in an estimated 70,000 preventable hospital admissions per year. At the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative, we support research that starts small, but has the potential to have huge impacts on healthcare.

That's why we support TAPER, the Team Approach to Polypharmacy Evaluation and Reduction Research Program. TAPER pulls on a core team of family doctors, pharmacists, and patients to safely optimize the medications a person is taking based on their preferences and health priorities. Care providers are guided by the TAPER clinical pathway and customized software to flag, pause, and monitor their patients' medication, minimizing the risk of adverse reactions and improving quality of life.

We have really good systems for starting medications. We have no really good systems for stopping them. And we all know that polypharmacy is a problem. I see this as one of the best opportunities that we have to improve healthcare and the life of older adults in the next 30 years. In Canada, the impact of TAPER is being assessed through a randomized clinical trial.

TAPER is also being adapted and tested in long-term care centers, community pharmacies, and hospitals in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The results are encouraging. We're really excited about what we're seeing. Our vision is that the system of reducing the harms of polypharmacy will become part of our routine preventive care for older adults to better support the health and the lives of Canadians of the future.