Healthcare professionals are increasingly expected to engage in research and quality improvement (QI), while the conditions necessary to support such engagement are often absent or poorly defined. This guide addresses this gap by offering a structured, evidence informed framework to help identify the conditions that need to be put in place and the strategies suited to local contexts.
Organizational Objective
To support researchers, managers, organizational leaders, and health system decision makers in selecting and combining evidence informed strategies that create the structural, relational, and resource conditions needed to engage healthcare professionals as genuine partners in applied clinical research and quality improvement.
Clinical Objective
To help healthcare professionals understand the conditions they need to have the opportunity, capability, and motivation to engage meaningfully as partners in research and quality improvement initiatives, rather than as passive participants.
Definition: Health Professional Engagement in Research and QI
Health Professional Engagement in Research and QI is the strategic partnership model wherein physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, and allied health professionals serve as active co-decision-makers throughout the entire project lifecycle—from priority setting and study design to data interpretation and leading practice change—rather than functioning solely as passive subjects or end-users of findings.
Definition: Strategy and Strategy Block
An evidence-based method for getting health professionals involved in research and quality improvement, defined by exactly what steps are taken and why those steps work.
Strategy Block: A combination of methods that are more effective when used together to achieve a specific goal than when applied in isolation.
- Research Teams
- Healthcare Professionals
- Social services Professionnals
- Decision-makers or managers
- Student Community
- Continuous Quality Improvement Officers (AACQ in GMFs and ARACQ in GMF-Us)
- Family medicine practices or family medicine groups
- Clinical Coordination Managers
Decision makers, leaders, researchers, managers, and healthcare professionals can use this guide to design engagement approaches that are realistic, effective, and sustainable, without adding burden to already stretched clinical teams.
It enables stakeholders
- to systematically assess the existing organizational conditions;
- to identify the gaps that hinder meaningful engagement;
- to select coherent combinations of strategies aligned with the operational realities of clinical practice.
Healthcare professionals can also use the guide to identify and clearly articulate the conditions necessary for meaningful engagement.
This interactive strategy guide translates a complex evidence base into six coordinated strategy blocks , each representing combinations of engagement strategies that are more effective together than in isolation.
An integrated strategy dictionary provides detailed descriptions, rationale, practical examples, and implementation watch outs, enabling leaders to move from high level planning to concrete action.
A CIUSSS innovation lead aims to scale clinician involvement across multiple clinics in a quality improvement initiative, after earlier efforts failed due to inconsistent expectations, limited support, and perceptions of QI as an added burden with little influence on decisions.
Using the guide, the lead maps existing conditions and identifies recurring gaps in foundational structures (such as protected time) and in processes supporting motivation and voice.
Drawing on the strategy blocks and dictionary, they select a coherent set of strategies to standardize protected time, clarify decision making authority, and support cross site mentorship and peer learning.
Impact
As a result, clinician engagement becomes more consistent across clinics, participation increases, and leadership gains a scalable approach to supporting engagement without relying on individual goodwill.
- Manon de Raad, PhD Student, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University; Research officer, St. Mary’s Research Centre
- Paula L. Bush, Academic Associate, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
- Dorsa Salimi, Research Assistant, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
- Jiahao Deng, Research Assistant, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
- Tracie A. Barnett, Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine, McGill University
- Frédérique Poncet, Assistant Professor, School of Physical and Occupational Therapy, McGill University
de Raad, M., Bush, P.L., Salimi, D., Deng, J., Barnett, T.A., & Poncet, F. (2026). Creating the conditions for partnership: An evidence-informed strategy guide for engaging healthcare professionals in applied clinical research and quality improvement.
Learn more about experiential self-reported measures by healthcare professionals