CAHO to receive $6.3M from Ontario Government for ARTIC Program

The Council of Academic Hospitals of Ontario (CAHO) is delighted to learn that the Ontario Government will invest $6.3 million into the CAHO Adopting Research to Improve Care (ARTIC) Program - a program aimed at moving research evidence from the bench to the bedside to drive quality and improve patient care.

"This is very welcome news for our community," said Dr. Barry McLellan, Chair of CAHO, and President and CEO of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "Improving the quality of health care starts with research, and this funding will help expand our efforts to determine the best way forward to implement the evidence that comes from that research in order to improve the delivery of health care."

While many in the health care sector have successfully shared best practices within their own organizations, professions and sometimes across communities of care such as paediatrics or mental health, as a health care system, Ontario has yet to realize the full potential of sharing best practices and systematizing efforts to move research evidence into practice.

In 2010, CAHO resolved to address this challenge. Committed to fostering better collaboration and trying to establish a systematic approach to moving research evidence into practice, CAHO launched the Adopting Research to Improve Care (ARTIC) Program.  The aim of the program is to move research evidence into practice from one hospital across the CAHO community in order to drive quality improvement and benefit the health care system as a whole.

"Too often, we have found pathways to improve care and drive quality improvement in the health care system, but that knowledge never leaves the organization that created it," said Karen Michell, Executive Director, CAHO. "Through the ARTIC Program, CAHO aspires to help build a systematic and sustainable implementation pathway for evidence adoption across the province and we are pleased to partner with the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care on this important journey."

Since its inception, the ARTIC Program has successfully launched 2 projects: the first addressing wait times in the ER by making better uses of inter-professional resources; and the second addressing the challenge of infection control and hand hygiene compliance.

"The CAHO ARTIC Program is a wonderful example of collaboration and using evidence to drive decisions in the delivery of care," said Hon. Deb Matthews, Minister of Health and Long-Term Care. "I applaud CAHO for the leadership and ongoing commitment to the continuous improvement of our health care system."