Patient priorities in primary care: Building resources and capacity for patient-oriented primary care research in British Columbia

Primary care - access to doctors and nurses for general health concerns - forms the backbone of our health care system. Primary care is our first point of access for most health care services, and coordinates our journey through the health system when we need care from specialists or in hospitals. We rely on primary care providers to follow our care over time, focusing on us as whole people, rather than on specific diseases. Primary care researchers study how we can improve the delivery of primary care and want to understand what topics patients believe should be top priorities for research. However, individual researchers may not have time or resources to get input from a diverse group of patients. Our goals for this project are to: 1.Identify patient priorities for primary care research in BC; 2.Build new projects and collaborations based on these priorities; and; 3.Help primary care researchers involve patients more actively in research. We are planning three activities to achieve these goals. As a first step, we will build patient participation into a conference that focuses on policy changes in primary care. This event brings together people from government and health administration, as well as doctors, nurses, and researchers. We want to make sure patients are also included, and are supported to participate and provide input. Building on discussion at the conference, we will do an online survey to understand patient priorities for primary care research in BC. We will then report back to people who completed the survey to let them know how we are following up on the input they provided. Finally, will build a panel of patients who are willing to provide ongoing input on primary care research in BC. We hope this work will help researchers plan work that better meets the needs of patients, with the ultimate goal of improving the primary care that patients receive.