Recipe for success: Increased collaboration
Imagine trying to bake a cake with no ingredients. Impossible, right?
The same holds true for health-care research, where patients who volunteer for clinical trials are the essential ingredient for researchers focused on developing new and improved treatments.
Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) is a top research hospital in Canada, and thousands of our patients have participated in clinical trials over the years including pregnant patients, children and their families at our McMaster Children’s Hospital (MCH).
By partnering with our research community to try new treatment regimens, medications and lifestyle routines, these MCH patients and families are key partners in leading-edge research aimed at improving health outcomes and quality of life for people locally, nationally and globally.
Our research community
Bruce Squires, President of HHS McMaster Children’s Hospital
Our researchers are from HHS, McMaster University and local research institutes including the Offord Centre for Child Studies which is affiliated with MCH and McMaster University; McMaster-based CanChild, focusing on children and youth with disabilities and their families; and the Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research at McMaster.
“We have nationally and internationally recognized experts in our local research community,” says MCH President Bruce Squires.
Our patients and their families typically find out about opportunities to participate in clinical trials from their HHS physician or other hospital health-care provider, who learn about these studies through the research community.
A vision for the future
Dr. Marc Jeschke, HHS Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer.
Hamilton Health Sciences is a world leader in advancing and creating new knowledge through research activities that span the full spectrum of human health from neo-natal to older adults.
“But we can contribute even further to the research world through increased collaboration among our research community,” says HHS Vice President of Research and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Marc Jeschke.
Benefits to patients and the research community
Increased collaboration also creates better awareness of clinical trial options, with new and potentially better treatments.
“Research is one of the major benefits to patients receiving care at an academic health sciences centre like HHS,” says Squires. “Our patients have opportunities to participate in leading-edge clinical trials in hopes of improving their health as well as the health of people locally, nationally and internationally.”
The better our research community becomes at collaborating, the more impactful and well-known our research will become, adds Jeschke. “This, in turn, will help attract even more of the best researchers, scientists, educators and health-care providers in the world to Hamilton – all focused on improving the health and quality of life for patients locally as well as globally.”
