Research strongly demonstrates links between high functioning primary care and improved population health outcomes. Clinician-led research that takes advantage of routinely collected patient data has the potential to rapidly and efficiently provide important insights into primary care delivery, patient-centred improvement and population health.
The McMaster University Sentinel and Information Collaboration (MUSIC) is a practice-based learning and research network (PBLRN) with clinical data provided and governed by from the McMaster Family Health Organization. MUSIC facilitates research and quality improvement projects on topics that are important to primary care and the patients it serves. MUSIC extracts specific elements of structured, de-identified data from electronic medical records. This enables research and quality improvement on topics in “real world” settings on topics such as clinical care pathways, disease prognosis, treatment efficacy, and the management of chronic illness.
MUSIC can also support data requests from clinical researchers to conduct prospective research and health care intervention studies.
Contact MUSIC@FamMedMcMaster.ca for more information.
BA (Hons), MSc, PhD
Associate Professor
Michelle Howard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine. Her research focuses on understanding the role of primary care for people with serious and life-limiting illness, by examining the influences of practice models, patterns and policies using health administrative and clinical data. She has also studied how patients and health care professionals in primary care talk about serious illness and preparing for future decision-making and has evaluated several tools for advance care planning in family practice.
Michelle has an MSc in Epidemiology from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Health Research Methodology from McMaster University. She primarily uses quantitative approaches including observational studies with population-based data (e.g. www.ices.on.ca www.cpcssn.ca), survey research and development of measures.
Michelle is an instructor for the Program Evaluation course in the McMaster Health Science Education (HSED) program and supervises graduate students with relevant research interests in McMaster’s Health Research Methodology Program.
BSc MSc
Research Coordinator
Rebecca has worked at DFM since Summer 2019. As a Research Coordinator, she works with multiple projects and initiatives within the department including MUSIC, and the David Braley Primary Care Research Collaborative. She also advocates for good data management practices for research.
Rebecca has a Master’s of Science from the University of Waterloo. Her research interests are in primary care, in particular the improvement of health care delivery and collaborative team-based care. Outside of work, Rebecca enjoys spending time with her family and staying active.
MUSIC is committed to research that will provide sound evidence for rational medical and public health practice and is seen to be otherwise impartial and free of any funding which may prejudice these goals. We do not provide data or accept funding for research from pharmaceutical companies or other for-profit organizations either directly or indirectly (as unrestricted educational grants or fellowships) where that partnership could create a conflict of interest in the work at Department of Family Medicine. These principles are explicit parts of our agreements with POPLAR and CPSCCN.