Institute Awards 2017

Recipients of the 2017 O’Brien Institute Awards announced

The annual O'Brien Institute Awards are designed to recognize and celebrate research excellence among its membership – and excellence is something that the Institute has in abundance, according to Scientific Director Dr. William Ghali.

This year, two new categories of awards were announced, bringing the total to five awards designed to recognize excellence, inform nominations for external awards, and stimulate research career development.

The O’Brien Institute Awards are an important opportunity to honour the outstanding achievements of our members, whose dedication and passion continue to inform and shape health policy and practice in meaningful ways.

Dr. William Ghali

O'Brien Institute Scientific Director

O’Brien Institute Emerging Research Leader Award

Glen Hazlewood, PhD, is a rheumatologist and an assistant professor in the Departments of Medicine, and Community Health Sciences in the Cumming School of Medicine. Hazlewood has made sustained and impressive progress in his career to date, with national and international recognition for his research in the field of patient preference for therapy in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), while applying these research findings to large scale dissemination activities that influence daily practice in Canada and beyond.

O’Brien Institute Mid-Career Research Leader Award

Dr. Tom Stelfox is scientific director of the Critical Care Strategic Clinical Network, as well as deputy department head and director of research and innovation, Department of Critical Care Medicine, University of Calgary. Stelfox has made numerous important research contributions that are directly relevant to improving patient care through the optimization of health services delivery including developing the first set of evidence-informed quality indicators, and the first patient reported outcome measures for injury care; leading an initiative to improve the implementation of scientific evidence into the care of critically ill patients admitted to intensive care units (ICU) in Alberta; and co-leading a four-year, $1,388,754 grant from CIHR focused on late life issues.

O’Brien Institute Research Excellence Award

Deborah Marshall, PhD, is a professor with the department of Community Health Sciences, a Canada Research Chair, Health Systems and Services Research, an Arthur J.E. Child Chair, Rheumatology Outcomes Research, and director of Health Technology Assessment with the Alberta Bone and Joint Health Institute. Marshall’s research on innovative care paths that assessed quality of care for joint replacement won prestigious national research awards from CIHR, and a Canadian Medical Association Journal Top Achievements in Canadian Health Research. Her research evaluated an evidence-based integrated care path for hip and knee replacement to treat Albertans with osteoarthritis (OA). Dramatic improvements included better access to surgery, patient function and quality of life. She also helped to develop wait times rules for standardized measurement of wait times for referrals for hip and knee arthroplasty, which were officially endorsed by Alberta Health Services.

O’Brien Institute Societal Impact Award

Jennifer Hatfield, PhD, is associate dean, Strategic Partnerships and Community Engagement (SPaCE), Cumming School of Medicine, an adjunct associate professor, Department of Ecosystem and Public Health, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, and associate professor, Department of Community Health Sciences, Cumming School of Medicine. Through her international experience and partnerships, Hatfield identified a series of concerning health problems including a need to strengthen health human resources in Tanzania to better impact population health locally and globally; a need for leadership to address limited training and research opportunities in East Africa; and a need to develop equitable, mutually beneficial partnerships to support sustainable training and research initiatives. Recognizing these issues, she focused on building the educational capacity locally in Public Health in Tanzania through collaborations with the Catholic University of Health and Allied Sciences (CUHAS, Tanzania), and the Cumming School of Medicine. Under Hatfield’s leadership, the program has grown in reputation and quality and now receives many more applications than it has space to accommodate.

Lynn McIntyre Award for outstanding service to the O'Brien Institute

Rebecca Haines-Saah, PhD, is an assistant professor with the Department of Community Health Sciences. Haines-Saah has been proactive in sharing her research passion and expertise with community partners and the media, thereby building and strengthening Institute partnerships with municipal and community stakeholders. She has been at the forefront of informing health policy around cannabis legalization including contributing to a series of reports at the request of the Alberta Government to inform the province’s response to legalization, led by the HTA Unit, organizing a province-wide public forum exploring the potential impact of cannabis legalization, and being an invited panelist to the City of Calgary’s special education session for City Council on marijuana legalization. Recently Haines-Saah has accepted an invitation to co-lead the Population Health and Prevention group within the Institute, and has been a positive influence in the developing Health Policy Centre.