UCalgary’s Precision Health Program sparks entrepreneurial drive in health-care professionals

What happens if we invite patients to be equal partners in how we deliver health care?

That was one of the central questions Megan Hoefman set out to answer during her experiential learning project in the Cumming School of Medicine’s (CSM) Precision Health Program (PHP). The program is a transdisciplinary course that equips health-care professionals with advanced skills to improve patient and system outcomes. 

Hoefman worked as a nurse in the immunization program during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“I was able to see opportunities for improvement in our system,” she says, “and developed a passion for quality improvement and safety management.” That experience led her to pursue PHP’s Quality and Safety Leadership stream. 

For her project, Hoefman partnered with the Calgary Foothills Primary Care Network and collaborated with 211 Alberta; a helpline that connects Albertans to community programs, services and resources. She interviewed patients to understand how factors such as financial status, education, and employment were influencing their ability to access care, with a desire to understand how the system could better support them. 

“Patients have a valuable perspective and can suggest things that health-care providers might not think of,” says Hoefman. 

Precision Health and experiential learning 

The experiential learning project is the last element of the PHP.

Hoefman was one of 22 PHP master’s graduates that participated in 21 experiential learning projects, presented at the PHP Symposium this June. In addition to the master’s program, PHP offers a graduate certificate and a graduate diploma in Precision Health.

Students choose one of four streams: 

• Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Quality and Safety Leadership
• Health Professions Education Leadership
• Precision Medicine

For their projects learners are partnered with community health organizations, researchers, or startup companies to co-design solutions for real health-care challenges

Embedding research into health care 

For their project, Health Professions Education Leadership stream students Samra Talha and Mustafa Abdalrahman co-created an Innovation and Entrepreneurship Curriculum for health-care postdocs and postgrads. 

Their curriculum is designed to shift learners' mindsets from focusing solely on research to embracing innovation and entrepreneurship. As Talha and Abdalrahman explain, it encourages researchers to move beyond viewing a paper or proof as their end point, and consider turning their research into practical solutions or new approaches. 

As a case study, Talha and Abdalrahman studied the work of CSM associate professor, Dr. Chad Bousman, PhD, who researches pharmacogenetics, or how genes and drugs interact.

Based on his research, Bousman invented Sequence2Script, a tool for health-care providers that translates pharmacogenetic data into personalized medication recommendations based on a person’s genotype.

Bousman's experience matches the goal of the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Curriculum: to take research and develop innovative tools with practical, real-world uses.

“We want our students to be innovators, Talha says, “We want them to be entrepreneurs. We want them to think in the direction of implementing their own inventions.”

“If you start thinking this way from the beginning,” adds Abdalrahman, “it will change your research.” 

Talha is already applying her PHP curriculum-building experience as a college instructor.

Abdalrahman—who works in diagnostic imaging—is also bringing his leadership and innovation mindset to his work, gathering a team of co-workers to improve processes and service delivery for patients.

Always thinking of patient-centred care

As for Hoefman, she’s also bringing her learnings to her work as a community nurse delivering vaccines to homebound patients. She’s improved communication channels and developed processes for quickly getting vaccines to those in need.

“Working in a real-life environment with patients was very impactful,” she says. “The work I did in the project has the potential to make real-life change.”

Her project culminated in a set of recommendations for her community partner on how they can support their patients and make care more accessible. 

That’s what PHP is all about: leadership, real-world solutions and building the future of patient- centred health care.