CPIN SPOR Study

CPIN is a bilingual infrastructure for primary care providers to engage with their patients. It enables digital sharing of health promotion messages and/or collecting patient feedback via digital surveys. CPIN operates under a not-for-profit framework. Conceived by University of Ottawa and Montfort Hospital family physician researchers, CPIN underwent rigorous testing and scaling over seven years. It has been adopted by more than 50 providers through different research projects.

Part of the CIHR-funded SPOR Canadian Primary Care Research Network (CPCRN) is led by the CPIN team to contribute to the development of a primary healthcare information system in which patient reported experience and outcome measures (PREMs/PROMs) can be collected across practices and linked with electronic medical record (EMR) data and administrative data to provide a more comprehensive picture of primary care in Canada. The CPIN SPOR project is focused on building a sustainable approach to collecting patient perspectives. CPIN is building the tools that make patient engagement easier, more accessible, wider reaching, and more reliable, so researchers, policymakers and practitioners can count on being able to get patient input in a timely, focused way and patients can count on a low burden system to capture and amplify their perspective. As CPIN learns from patients, the team will make data and findings available to participating practices to inform practice organisation and clinical care decision making. A larger data set from many practices may help identify patterns in primary care that can fuel better and more equitable health outcomes, especially for people with complex and/or unmet needs due to multiple, intersecting determinants of health including linguistic minority status.

What is expected from clinics/providers?

• Use the Qualtrics platform or your own patient portal to send messages and surveys to your patients
• Fill out two short provider surveys on the experience using CPIN
• Conduct one interview with a manager or lead physician on their experience with CPIN data

Benefits for your patients and for your practice

• • Subscription to the Qualtrics platform for free for the duration of the project
    • • • Allows a practice to rapidly inform patients about emerging health topics or clinic operations
        • Allows patients to share their perspective and experiences with minimal burden on the practice
        • Offers practices timely reports on patient perspectives
• Access to a library of messages and surveys on the CPIN website
• $1000 compensation per participating provider for their time learning about the platform and providing feedback

Project Updates

March – December 2025

Ontario

• Preparatory work continued with the OPEN Network to support upcoming clinic recruitment for CPIN-SPOR.

• Coordination with provincial and national partners is ongoing to align recruitment pathways and data flows.

Alberta

• New primary care providers were recruited, including participation from Shifa Medical Clinic.

• Patients received health promotion messages on COVID-19 and influenza vaccination, followed by survey messages to capture patient experience and understanding.

• Summary reports based on patient survey responses were shared with participating providers.

• Meetings were held with Alberta Health Services to define data-sharing and governance processes.

• Data analysis and linkage of patient survey responses with electronic medical record (EMR) data are conducted locally within Alberta, in accordance with provincial requirements.

Newfoundland and Labrador

• Health promotion messages were delivered to patients, including messages focused on staying active during cooler months, with linked surveys.

• Pilot testing of SMS messaging was conducted, including cleaning patient contact lists to ensure messages were sent to mobile numbers only.

• Message content and delivery strategies were refined based on patient and clinic feedback (e.g., introductory messages sent without links).

• Reports summarizing patient responses were prepared and shared with participating physicians.

• Data-sharing agreements were developed to enable secure transfer and linkage of patient survey data with EMR data.

Other Updates

• Work continued to support secure SMS infrastructure, including technical setup and testing of messaging platforms.

• Ethics approvals were maintained and updated, with the project formally extended to March 31, 2027.

• National coordination continued with provincial partners and related initiatives, including CPCSSN / PaRIS, to support methodological alignment and future scale-up.