Research and Innovation

CRI Research & Innovation

At CRI, we place a high priority on educating health care providers and facilitating knowledge translation reinforced by research and leading-edge innovation.  Our capacity to reach-out beyond borders and collaborate with stakeholders is impressive.  Our adaptability to develop and tailor courses along with the use of cutting-edge educational methods, such as virtual patients and high fidelity simulation, makes us unique in the international world of critical care education.  Some recent examples of CRI's activities in innovation and research include:

H1N1 Collaborative Forum

The H1N1 Collaborative Forum is a newly formed online international Community of Practice for health care professionals dealing with patients with H1N1. As a Community of Practice, all site members have the ability to post and share information, edit documents and contribute to discussions.  Some current features include repositories of official publications and shared practice tools (e.g. triage protocols, infection control signage); a wiki dedicated to H1N1; case reports and summaries; links to educational resources; nation-wide videoconference live presentations and archives; news feeds from public health agencies and PubMed; discussion forums; and blogs.


REACHout (Regional Educational Activities for Community Hospitals)

There are many highly effective but relatively low-cost interventions that can be safely implemented in community settings with minimal training, despite limited resources.  The ultimate goal of REACHout is to measurably improve the outcomes of critically ill patients who present to community hospitals.  Through REACHout, we bring together community practitioners and tertiary specialists to bring about improvement in quality of care and patient safety through system improvement, practice tool development and education.  Although REACHout has been initially implemented on a regional basis in Ontario, Canada, its outcomes will be of national and international health care benefit.  Collaborators with CRI include decision-makers from the Champlain LHIN (Local Health Integrated Network), scientists from the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute (OHRI) and the uOttawa Academy for Innovation in Medical Education (AIME); educators from the uOttawa Office of Continuing Medical Education and Simulation Centre and Faculty of Health Sciences; and clinicians representing multiple professions from The Ottawa Hospital (TOH), the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and eventually select community hospitals.  Initial financial support to CRI for REACHout has been provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR; Partnerships for Health System Improvement [PHSI]) and the Champlain LHIN.


SimuCase Interactive Virtual Patient

SimuCase(tm) is a unique learning tool under development by CRI to provide opportunities for deliberate practice of critical situations, using simulations of clinical reasoning that complement other learning methods (e.g. high-fidelity simulation).  Of critical importance, SimuCase(tm) can be used for distance e-learning using web or videoconference technology.  The dynamic backbone of SimuCase(tm) is video and photography that respond to learner decisions, as well as a virtual patient monitor to enhance the presentation of clinical cases.  SimuCase(tm) is designed to allow participants to make open-ended decisions about a virtual patient, including the priorities of assessment or management, history taking, therapeutic interventions, diagnostic tests, etc., as they would in real clinical situations.


Distance Learning

Making state-of-the-art, evidence-based learning more accessible to learners is one of our key innovation strategies.  These initiatives are particularly important to bring education to practitioners in rural or remote locations, where it may be impossible for practitioners to leave the community for a course and financially unsustainable to bring the course (including instructors and simulation equipment) to them.  To solve these challenges, we make innovative uses of distance learning technologies:  web-based self-learning, webinars, education by TeleMedicine, and virtual patients.  One current initiative is to train physicians in Iqaluit, Nunavut, who provide healthcare services to the majority of Inuit persons in Canada.


High-Fidelity Simulation

Among our senior members and instructors are world leaders in high-fidelity simulation.  These physician-educators  are  advancing our understanding and of the benefits of high-fidelity medical simulations for teaching and assessing key competencies in critical care, such as patient assessment, rapid resuscitation, and crisis resource management.


Rapid Response Systems

Research evidence is growing in critical care that shows an early, coordinated approach to the identification and resuscitation of critically ill patients improves patient outcomes.  In Ontario hospitals, rapid response teams (also called medical emergency teams or critical care response/outreach teams) of critical care physicians, nurses and respiratory therapists have been established to bring this care to at-risk patients outside of the intensive care unit.  Since 2006, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care has contracted CRI to train the hundreds of health care professionals who serve on these teams.  We have also provided this training to organizations in the United States and Mexico.


Critical Care Training for Family Medicine Residents

In community settings it is front-line general practitioners who work in emergency departments and who care for inpatients who are best posed to recognize and react to critical illness as early as possible.  To help enable family physicians for this role, CRI is working with the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa to provide ACES (Acute Critical Event Simulation) training to all family medicine residents in Ottawa.  This is the first and only such program in Canada.


Contact for more information: contactus@criedunet.org