About Us

While we are based at the Bruyère Research Institute in Ottawa, we are a predominantly remote research team comprised of members across Canada.

Our team honours the Algonquin Anishnaabeg people, whose traditional unceded territory the City of Ottawa is located. We extend this respect to all First Nations, Inuit, and Metis peoples, their Elders, their ancestors, and their valuable past and present contributions to this land.

 

  • To conduct mixed methods research to help ensure all Canadians (regardless of background or health condition) receive the highest possible quality of palliative care

  • Health system considerations:

    Health economics of home visits

    Hospital-to-home transitions

    Continuity of care

    Art/storytelling in the palliative care unit

    Non-cancer models of palliative care delivery:

    Organ failure (end-stage liver disease, end-stage kidney disease, heart failure)

    Opioid use disorder and structural vulnerability

  • Equity-, activism-, advocacy-informed

    Multidisciplinary collaborations

    Patient/caregiver engagement from conception through knowledge translation

    Methods from epidemiology, biostatistics, behavioural science, health economics, arts, design, and humanities

    Outputs that inform patient/caregiver experience, clinical practice, and/or policy

  • Mixed Methods

    Convergent parallel

    Sequential explanatory

    Qualitative

    Thematic analysis

    Narrative analysis

    Grounded theory

    Case studies

    Administrative Data and Electronic Medical Records Data

    Case control studies

    Retrospective cohort studies

    Cost savings analyses

    Cost effectiveness analyses

    Primary Data Collection

    Implementation studies

    Randomized control trials

    Reviews

    Literature reviews

    Scoping reviews

    Systematic reviews

    Rapid reviews

    Meta-analyses

    Qualitative meta-syntheses

    Knowledge Translation

    Arts-based

    Policy-Informing

    Patient and caregiver engagement

  • Bruyère Research Institute

    University of Ottawa

    Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences

    University of Toronto

    Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

    Ottawa Hospital Research Institute

  • To have a high impact, always learning, thriving, healthy team

  • Trust and transparency

    Resourcefulness

    Proactivity

    Balance and wellness

Shared Purpose

To be one of the leading teams in Canada for palliative care research

Dr. Sarina Isenberg | Principal Investigator/Lead

Dr. Sarina Isenberg is the Chair in Mixed Methods Palliative Care Research at Bruyère Research Institute in Ottawa, Canada. She is also an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine and School of Epidemiology and Public Health at the University of Ottawa, Assistant Professor in the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Toronto, Adjunct Professor at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Affiliate Investigator in the Clinical Epidemiology Program at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, and an Adjunct Scientist at ICES University of Ottawa.  

Dr. Isenberg has been a nominated principal or co-principal investigator on 31 projects (totaling $4.9 million) and a co-investigator on 29 projects (totaling $48.4 million) supported by regional, national, and international grant funding agencies. She has published over 90 peer-reviewed publications. Her work has been published in several leading health services and palliative medicine journals, including: Canadian Medical Association Journal, Journal of the American Medical Association, British Medical Journal, Medical Care, Palliative Medicine, and the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management.  

Her achievements in research have been recognized by a number of awards, including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Rising Star Early Career Award in Health Services and Policy Research (2022), the University of Ottawa Faculty of Medicine Early Career Researcher of the Year Award – Public Health and Epidemiology (2022), the University of Ottawa Department of Medicine PhD Scientist Award (2022), the University of Toronto Department of Family and Community Medicine Award of Excellence in Research - New Investigator (2020), and the American Association of Hospice Palliative Medicine Research Scholars Program (2020).  

Dr. Isenberg is also an Editorial Advisory Board Member for the Journal of Pain and Symptom Management, and a Director on the St. Joseph’s Villa Foundation Board of Directors. 

Dr. Isenberg has a PhD in Social and Behavioural Sciences from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a Masters of Arts in English Literature from Queen’s University, and a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature (minors in Psychology and World Religions) from McGill University. Prior to pursuing her PhD, she worked as a management consultant for Deloitte’s National Health Services Team in Toronto.