Chronic Pain
Research

​Canada is in the middle of a chronic pain crisis affecting one in five Canadians, including children. Chronic pain is associated with the worst quality of life of all chronic conditions, and is the most common reason for seeking health care. Access to the most appropriate health care for chronic pain is very limited, with wait times reported for chronic pain clinics ranging from several months to years. In response, my collaborative, interprovincial, multi-disciplinary team of patients, researchers, front-line providers, and decision-makers has developed and received funding for an innovative research-to-action chronic pain program. Through this program, we will implement a novel, adaptable, electronic consultation model for chronic pain to enable better care through faster access to specialist pain services across Canada. To date, we have conducted in-depth chronic pain needs assessments in three provinces (ON, QC, MB) and are working to create tailored eConsult chronic pain services and assess the service’s implementation. We also aim to conduct an impact assessment from patient, provider and health system perspectives, and synthesize our findings to create chronic pain eConsult adoption and engagement tools with implications for national scale-up.