Midterm Workshop (Session 1 of 2) Executive Summary
About the THINC Initiative
Integrated care emerged as a top priority for research investment and action in CIHR-IHSPR's 2020 listening tour and features prominently in the Institute's 2021-2026 strategic plan. To advance this priority, CIHR-IHSPR along with federal and provincial partners across Canada launched the Transforming Health with Integrated Care (THINC) Research Initiative. Since 2023, the THINC has invested close to $27 million to support 13 Implementation Science Teams (ISTs) and the THINC NICE Knowledge Mobilization (KM) and Impact Hub to advance evidence-informed integrated care transformation for Canadians (See Appendix A. for detailed information on the Hub and Teams). THINC ISTs focus on priority populations with complex health needs, those at risk of poorer outcomes due to social and structural determinants of health and historically excluded groups.
The THINC NICE Hub (led by Dr. Walter Wodchis and Jodeme Goldhar) serves as the THINC initiative's knowledge mobilization and impact platform, connecting ISTs and amplifying collective research impact. The THINC NICE Hub brings together projects that are testing and evaluating models of integrated care across the country to understand what works and how successful approaches can be scaled. With its focus on synthesizing and sharing knowledge from these integrated care projects to support implementation and improvement in care delivery and its partnership with The North American Centre for Integrated Care and The International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) Canada, the THINC NICE Hub connects Canadian integrated care efforts with international experience and expertise, helping collective learning from and contribute to global best practices.
Learn more about the THINC ISTs and NICE Hub.
Workshop Highlights
The midterm workshop featured research progress and emerging impacts at the midpoint of the ISTs' five-year grants. Its core aims were:
- Knowledge sharing: Share and learn from each other's KM, engagement, and impact strategies.
- Building community: Provide a forum that deepens connections across ISTs and with NICE.
- Advancing impact: Support ISTs and the hub in advancing their KM and impact strategies.
The workshop opened with remarks from the CIHR-IHSPR Scientific Director, Dr. Rick Glazier, and CIHR President, Dr. Paul Hébert, speaking to THINC's aims and the strength of partnerships and collective impact. Dr. Walter Wodchis, co-lead of the THINC NICE Hub, set the stage by highlighting the THINC NICE Hub's role in amplifying the collective impact of the THINC initiative including within the broader international context including the International Foundation for Integrated Care (IFIC) and North American Centre and associated Conference on Integrated Care (NACIC). This was followed by three dialogue-based panels focused on knowledge mobilization, engagement, and impact strategies for people with lived/living experience (PWLE), knowledge users (KU) and providers, with each panel featuring representatives from the ISTs. The workshop concluded with a forward-looking keynote address on maximizing pathways to research impact, provided by Dr. Kathryn Graham.
Key themes:
- Co-design with Lived Experience: Shift from consultation to co-production for better research relevance, design and reach (impact).
- Trust and Relationship Building: Break the 'pilot trap' through building trust, identifying champions and aligning with shared priorities with policy and decision-makers.
- Meet Interest-holders where they are: Move beyond buy-in by embedding engagement strategies in existing workflows and structures (e.g., join existing meetings) and demonstrating value through data (e.g., share success stories).
- Keynote Insights on a co-model that focuses on collaborating across diverse interest holders to action impact. She presented a paradigm shift away from the idea that impact is something that is thought about and assessed retrospectively, to co-designing and strategically planning for impact and assessment upfront and monitor across the research lifecycle. Trusted relationships and engagement along the pathways to outcomes and impacts is critical, focusing on "with who do we need to engage? and "who benefits".
The workshop engaged more than 100 participants from across Canada, including researchers, people with lived/living experience, healthcare providers, and policy maker members representing the 13 ISTs; the co-leads and patient, provider, and policy maker champions of the NICE Hub; invited guests from organizations that share a commitment to evidence-informed integrated care transformation; and program partners.
This event set the stage for the in-person midterm workshop in May 2026, which will aim to deepen collaboration and accelerate integrated care innovation across Canada.
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