Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

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Patient decision aids

Patient decision aids are tools that help people become involved in decision making by making explicit the decision that needs to be made, providing information about the options and outcomes, and by clarifying personal values. They are designed to complement, rather than replace, counseling from a health practitioner.

The Ottawa Hospital's Patient Decision Aids Research Group, which is also affiliated with the University of Ottawa, maintains the world's largest inventory of patient decision aids, along with related tools and resources.

Research News

	Drs. Dawn Stacey and Ian Graham named Distinguished University Professors July 27, 2022 - Senior scientists Drs. Dawn Stacey and Ian Graham have both received the title of Distinguished University Professor from the University of Ottawa in recognition of their exceptional scholarly achievement, pre-eminence in their fields and solid teach
	App provides patients with their personalized risks after surgery February 17, 2021 - Patients who used a made-in-Ottawa app to calculate their risk of complications, hospitalization and death after surgery understood these risks better than patients who received standard care, according to a study published in the Canadian Journal of
	Recognizing emerging health services and policy researchers-Dr. Laura Boland December 17, 2020 - The CIHR Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (CIHR-IHSPR) is pleased to announce that Dr. Laura Boland has received a 2020 CIHR-IHSPR Rising Star Awards.
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	Should I leave my retirement or long-term care home due to COVID-19? New tools can help with tough decisions April 22, 2020 - Researchers from The Ottawa Hospital, the University of Ottawa, the Champlain Local Health Integration Network?and the National Institute of Ageing have developed tools to help seniors decide if they should temporarily move out of their retirement, a
	Ottawa-led team stands out for patient decision aids research October 8, 2019 - Dr. Dawn Stacey has earned the distinction of having her Cochrane systematic review cited more than any other Cochrane Review published in 2018.
	Drs. David Moher and Dawn Stacy inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences October 2, 2019 - Drs. Dawn Stacey and David Moher were recognized among Canada’s top-ranked health and biomedical scientists during their induction as Fellows of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences.
	Dr. Dawn Stacey co-hosts International Shared Decision Making Conference August 14, 2019 - Dr. Dawn Stacey co-hosted the International Shared Decision Making Conference in Quebec City with Dr. France Légaré. More than 400 people from 22 countries participated in the conference, which focused on Patient-Oriented Shared Decision Ma
	Dr. Dawn Stacey one of Canada’s top nurse academics March 29, 2019 - Dr. Dawn Stacey has been ranked as one of the most cited nurse academics in Canada. According to a paper published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, Dr. Stacey’s research has been cited 7241 times in the Scopus database over her career, putting her
	Clinicians at The Ottawa Hospital launch 14 innovative projects to improve health-care delivery, thanks to funding from TOHAMO and The Ottawa Hospital’s Research Institute March 22, 2019 - The Ottawa Hospital Academic Medical Organization (TOHAMO) has awarded $1.169 million in Innovation Grants to 14 teams, with supporting funds provided by the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute.
	Researchers to advance science and improve health with new CIHR funding February 14, 2019 - Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital, affiliated with the University of Ottawa, are playing a lead role in nine new projects funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). These projects will advance science and improve health in areas su
	Finding better ways to bring health research to life: World-leading Centre for Implementation Research opens at The Ottawa Hospital January 18, 2018 - Researchers regularly make discoveries that have the potential to improve patient care and quality of life. However, getting those findings adopted by health-care systems can be a challenge. Researchers at The Ottawa Hospital are already world l
	Top journal recognizes Ottawa expertise in patient decision aids August 17, 2017 - Dr. Dawn Stacey and her colleagues were invited by the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) to submit a summary of their recent Cochrane systematic review on patient decision aids. The review reports on the effectiveness
	Decision aid helps people with rectal cancer make tough choices July 6, 2016 - The good news about rectal cancer is that it is often curable through surgery. The bad news is that depending on which kind of surgery is performed, patients can either end up with a significant risk of incontinence or a permanent colostomy (in w
	Decision aids help patients weigh options and make choices September 25, 2015 - “This process is not to second guess the doctor,” explained Brian Cullen, reflecting on his experience with using a decision aid. “It’s about having information to make an informed choice.” Brian Cullen had just retired when a routine annual p

Researchers

Name	Scientific appointment	Diseases, conditions and populations of interest	Research and clinical approaches
Breau, Rodney MD	Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)	Cancer, Kidney disease, Prostate cancer	Clinical decision rules, Clinical research, Clinical trials, Cohort studies, Imaging, Patient decision aids, Patient engagement, Quality Improvement, Surgery, Systematic reviews, Transfusions
Brehaut, Jamie PhD	Senior Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)		Behaviour, Health professional behaviour change, Health services research, Knowledge translation and implementation research, Patient decision aids, Patient engagement, Psychology, Psychometrics, Qualitative methods, Shared decision making, Surveys
Grimes, David MD, FRCPC	Associate Scientist (Neuroscience)	Huntington's, Parkinson's	Clinical research, Clinical trials, Patient decision aids
Lavallee, Luke MDCM, MSc, FRCSC	Associate Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)	Cancer, Kidney disease, Population health, Prostate cancer	Clinical research, Clinical trials, Cohort studies, Epidemiology, Health economics, Health professional behaviour change, Imaging, Knowledge translation and implementation research, Patient decision aids, Quality Improvement, Surgery, Systematic reviews
Moore, Gregory MD, FRCPC	Clinician Investigator (Clinical Epidemiology)	Newborn and child health	Clinical research, Knowledge translation and implementation research, Patient decision aids, Qualitative methods, Quality Improvement, Shared decision making, Systematic reviews
Poulin, Patricia C. Psych.	Associate Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)	Addiction, Anxiety, Cancer, Chronic pain, Depression, Health equity, Musculoskeletal conditions, Pain	Anesthesiology, Behaviour, Biomarkers, Clinical research, Clinical trials, Emergency medicine, Epidemiology, Health professional behaviour change, Health services research, Knowledge translation and implementation research, Palliative care, Patient decision aids, Patient safety, Peri-operative medicine, Pragmatic trials, Psychology, Qualitative methods, Quality Improvement, Systematic reviews
Ramsay, Timothy PhD	Senior Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)	Addiction, Alzheimer's, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Anxiety, Ataxia, Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Autism, Bipolar, Brain and neuromuscular disease, Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Colorectal cancer, Concussion, Cystic fibrosis, Dementia, Depression, Dystonia, First Nations, Inuit and Métis Health, HIV, Immigrant and refugee health, Influenza, Kidney disease, Lung cancer, Macular degeneration, Men's health, Multiple sclerosis, Muscular dystrophy, Myasthenia gravis, Obesity, Ovarian cancer, Parkinson's, Pulmonary hypertension, Septic shock, Spinal cord injury	Artificial intelligence and data science, Behaviour, Biomaterials, Biostatistics, Cell therapy, Clinical decision rules, Clinical research, Clinical trials, Cohort studies, Critical care, Drug development, Emergency medicine, Epidemiology, Health professional behaviour change, Health promotion, Health research methods, Health services research, Health technology, Immunization, Immunotherapy, Palliative care, Patient decision aids, Pharmacology, Pharmacy, Prevention, Psychology, Psychometrics, Public health, Qualitative methods, Quality Improvement, Regenerative medicine, Rehabilitation, Risk assessment, Shared decision making, Surgery, Surveys, Systematic reviews, Transfusions, Translational research, Transplantation, Viral therapy
Stacey, Dawn RN, PhD, CON(C)	Senior Scientist (Clinical Epidemiology)		Clinical research, Clinical trials, Health professional behaviour change, Health research methods, Health services research, Knowledge translation and implementation research, Patient decision aids, Patient engagement, Qualitative methods, Quality Improvement, Shared decision making, Surveys, Systematic reviews

Related Resources

The Ottawa Hospital's Patient Decision Aids Research Group

The Ottawa Hospital's Centre for Implementation Research