Overall Foundation-Level Evaluation
| CHSRF AT THE CROSSROADS: CAPITALIZING ON SUCCESS Report of the International Review Panel to the Board of Trustees of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation |
Comment by the Foundation's Board of Trustees on the 2007 International Review Panel Report — March 23, 2007
The board of trustees of the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation officially received the final report of the international review panel on March 14, 2007 and had an opportunity to discuss it with panel chair Gilles Dussault and panel member Jack Davis at its meeting on March 23, 2007. The board wishes to thank the eminent panel for its time and hard work reviewing documents about the Foundation, interviewing stakeholders and staff members, and preparing the report.
The trustees note the panel's positioning of the report as "a catalyst for debate at a strategic moment in the life of the Foundation rather than a set of prescriptions." The trustees welcome this positioning and have asked Jeanette Ward, the incoming chief executive officer, to seek out such debate and subsequent reactions to the report in her discussions with stakeholders over the next few months. Indeed, trustees would like to hear reactions and comments from all members of our community. Please send this feedback to the Foundation by May 31, 2007 at evaluation@chsrf.ca.
The report will form an important part of the board of trustees' deliberations when it meets in June of this year to evaluate the Foundation's strategic direction for the next phase of its life. In addition to the report, and our stakeholders' reactions to it, the board will consider:
- the results from the Listening for Direction III priority-setting workshops conducted over the first few months of this year;
- the outcomes of the March 21 – 22 10th anniversary conference on the future of evidence-informed decision-making; and
- the conclusions of the new CEO based on her discussions with interested parties across the country.
The board of trustees' planned meeting in June will be all the more meaningful given the panel's clear statement on the continued need in Canada (and elsewhere) for an organization with a mission to support evidence-informed decision-making in the health sector, and its vote of confidence in the Foundation as the agency best positioned to do this in the next few years.
The board was also pleased the panel recognized the complementary nature of the relationship between the Foundation and the Institute of Health Services and Policy Research (part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research). As it has from the beginning, the Foundation will maintain a close and mutually respectful partnership with its sister entity in CIHR to better serve the health services and research communities.
Finally, the trustees were pleased to hear from the panel that "the Foundation has made a remarkable contribution to healthcare in Canada" and that it "has reached an international audience and is now seen as an organization whose methods of work and products have become a reference." The board sees this as high praise indeed for a relatively small organization such as the Foundation.
Once again, the board of trustees would like to thank the international review panel for its excellent work on behalf of the Foundation and the health services and research communities in Canada.
Members of the Foundation's second quinquennial international review panel, 2006/07
2002 international review
An international review panel submitted its report on the first five years of the Foundation's operations to the board of trustees in 2002.
- Report highlights (PDF - 614 KB)
- Final report (PDF - 206 KB)
- The Foundation's response
