About Family Medicine Research
Family medicine research explores questions about evidence-based practice, quality of care, illness prevention and health promotion, how our health care system is used and how it can be improved to better serve its patients.
Family medicine research is the discipline focused on answering questions and disseminating knowledge in order to help improve primary clinical care, support illness prevention and promote population health.
Unique because it focuses on questions that arise from the context of family practice, family medicine research supports evidence-based practice. As a result, it strengthens primary care, contributing to the transformation of patient care, and improving the health of patients, their families and the larger community.
What is family medicine research?
Patient-oriented and based in clinical practice, family medicine research examines questions that are unique to family medicine.
Throughout the ongoing relationship between the patient and the physician, and during the numerous interventions that can take place over a patient’s lifetime, family practice offers a uniquely focused setting in which to identify questions and conduct the ongoing study of illness and disease in primary care.
Why is family medicine research important?
Evidence exists that primary care significantly influences population health, and family medicine plays a vital role in primary care delivery. The development of patient-focused knowledge is necessary to improve the care delivered in the primary care setting, which is where health care is most often delivered to the Canadian population, and in helping prevent and manage illness in the community.