Providence Research, in combination with Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, has ranked fifth among Canada’s top 40 research hospitals for 2024.
The rankings, based on data from fiscal year 2022-2023, were compiled by Research Infosource Inc. and measured the total amount of research spending among the hospitals along with “research intensity,” meaning dollars per researcher and dollars as a percentage of total hospital spending.
Total research dollars for 2023 for VCHRI/PR combined were $170.2 million, while dollars per researcher totaled $374,000. The funding as a percentage of total hospital spending was 3.2 per cent.
Driving medical innovation
Providence Research is combined with VCHRI because Providence Health Care falls under the Vancouver Coastal Health umbrella.
“This ranking is a testament to the outstanding research at Providence Research,” says Darryl Knight, President of Providence Research. “It signals Providence’s commitment to drive medical innovation and scientific impact to deliver better health and health care to the patients we serve, and globally.”
Against the backdrop of the continuing opioid crisis in British Columbia, Providence Research, via the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) completed a number of studies on substance use, including the following:
- New research by BCCSU’s Dr. Eugenia Socías et al Alcohol Use Disorder Cascade of Care published in Addiction; found that medications to treat alcohol addiction are underused.
- The Lancet published The North American opioid crisis: how effective are supervised consumption sites co-authored by BCCSU’s Drs. Mary Clare Kennedy and Mohammad Karamouzian, along with Dr. Brandon Marshall.
- Province of BC officially announced the opening of Road to Recovery (R2R) at St. Paul’s Hospital. The R2R initiative is a partnership between BCCSU, Providence Health Care, and Vancouver Coastal Health.
- BCCSU’s Drug Checking team has published “New Instruments in Drug Checking”, a resource that consolidates technical information on 11 innovations in drug checking technologies.
Other highlights include:
- The construction launch of the Clinical Support Research Centre (CSRC). It will be approximately 34,400 square metres (370,000 square feet) in size and connected with a sky-bridge to the new St. Paul’s Hospital, which is under construction.
- The Phase One Clinical Trial Unit at Mount St. Joseph’s Hospital received $4.79M investment from the BC Ministry of Health and Michael Smith Health Research BC.
- A revamped PR website which now includes a Clinical Trials Research Database.
- The Centre for Cardiovascular Innovation published a national study on Progression of Atrial Fibrillation after Cryoablation or Drug Therapy led by Dr. Jason Andrade and a UBC research team, on how to treat atrial fibrillation better. The study was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
