Research Excellence

Health systems today are facing enormous pressures — rising rates of chronic disease, an aging population, growing mental health needs, and increasing demand for inclusive and equitable care. At the same time, patients and families want more than just services — they want care that is coordinated, person-centered, and responsive to their needs. But too often, health services and policies lag behind what people need and deserve. There is an urgent opportunity to reimagine how we design and deliver health care to better serve people and communities.

HSPRI is transforming how care is delivered to meet this challenge. HSPRI researchers are advancing innovative models of team-based care, improving services for individuals with complex and chronic needs, addressing stigma and inequity in mental health and disability services, and building more responsive and integrated health systems. With deep partnerships across communities, health systems, and government, HSPRI is driving real change — improving experiences of care, promoting healthier outcomes, and shaping a more inclusive and equitable future for health care in Canada and beyond.

HSPRI research is structured into the four core themes outlined below:

Strengthening Primary Care

The Problem

Canada is facing a primary care crisis

There is a growing need for primary care services associated with more complex patient encounters, increasing prevalence of chronic conditions, and an aging population
Concurrently, there is an increasing shortage of primary care physicians to meet these needs due to health human resources shortages and a declining interest in family medicine
As a result, over 6.5 million people in Canada currently lack access to a primary care provider
Systemic barriers to access means not everyone is affected equally. For example, immigrants and people with lower incomes are less likely to have a primary care provider

Our Mission

Strengthen primary care in Canada through research

The Strengthening Primary Care Research Excellence Cluster (SPC-REC) is transforming how primary care is delivered to address the challenges facing primary care
SPC-REC researchers are advancing innovative models of team-based care, improving primary care services for individuals with complex and chronic needs, addressing inequities in primary care service delivery, and building more responsive and integrated health systems.
With deep partnerships across communities, health systems, and government, SPC-REC is driving real change — improving experiences of primary care, promoting healthier outcomes, and shaping a more inclusive and equitable future for primary care in Ontario, Canada, and beyond.

How We Do It

Conduct high-quality primary care research in partnership with health system decision makers, patients, and primary care teams

SPC-REC’s cutting-edge research is rooted in partnerships between researchers with health service research expertise and the primary care teams, patients, health system decision makers, and policy makers who will use the results to advance primary care in Canada.
SPC-REC researchers develop and test new team-based primary care models, conduct rigorous evaluations of primary care services and integrated health systems, harness big data to inform primary care policy, and co-design solutions with patients, caregivers, and frontline primary care providers.
SPC-REC are building capacity through education and training of developing researchers, and driving knowledge into action through collaborations with primary care providers and policy leaders.
With donor support, HSPRI can scale these innovations and accelerate change — helping to build a future where every person receives access to high-quality, person-centered, team-based primary care close to home

Who We Are

Supported by the Health Services and Policy Research Institute (HSPRI) and the Centre for Studies in Primary Care (CSPC), the SPC-REC brings together leaders in primary care research from multiple disciplines across Queen’s University.

The SPC-REC includes multiple research subgroups who are driving change in primary care through research.

The SPC-REC has research partners regionally, provincially, nationally, and internationally who inform our research, use the new knowledge we produce, and mobilize our research through health system change.

Partnerships and Collaborations

The SPC-REC has extensive research and evaluation collaborations with the Frontenac, Lennox, and Addington Ontario Health Team (FLA-OHT)

We support the FLA-OHT with meaningful evaluation and quality improvement services to drive advancement in team-based primary care in our region.
Our deep and strong partnerships with the Primary Care Network in the FLA-OHT allows us to carry out research that drives change in primary care regionally and new knowledge that is being shared provincially, nationally, and internationally

The SPC-REC carries out research in collaboration with Ontario Health and the Ontario Ministry of Health to help advance primary care in Ontario. By integrating these knowledge users within our research teams and maintaining strong collaborative relationships, we provide new knowledge and mobilize research findings to advance the Ontario health system in a timely and impactful way.

As part of our commitment to carrying out research that meets the needs of knowledge users, and to mobilizing new knowledge; we carry out work in collaboration with ministries of health, provincial health authorities, and regional health authorities across Canada.

Given our focus on advancing team-based primary care models, we have long-standing collaborations with multiple professional associations who can mobilize to help us advance team-based primary care. We are leaders in thinking about multidisciplinary primary care teams as part of the solution to growing primary care needs.