Services Analysis and Public Health Platform

Mission / roles of the platform
Since 2009, the services analysis and public Health platform of the RQSHA has facilitated research on the adequacy of health policies and services with regard to intervention needs on suicide, mood disorders and associated disorders, including substance-related disorders. It also supports the study of the evaluation of prevalence and the impact of treatments, including medication on these populations. The studies favored by the platform are based on the use of large clinico-administrative databases. Several key public regulatory bodies in Canada, Quebec and internationally have stressed, in recent years, the importance of operating such large databases, which are useful for producing information that can often be generalized to the entire population. The three research councils of Canada and the Fonds de recherche Québec are among the organizations encouraging this type of research, integrating advanced statistical and computational techniques of machine learning including artificial intelligence.

Privileged access to large-scale health data
It is in this context that the Platform signed an agreement with the National Institute of Public Health of Quebec (INSPQ), so that RQSHA members can collaborate in the exploitation of its integrated database system, namely the Quebec Integrated Chronic Disease Surveillance System (SISMACQ). The SISMACQ integrates data for Quebec population with chronic diseases, including mental and substance-related disorders. The SISMACQ includes: a) the registration file of insured persons of the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec (RAMQ), containing socio-demographic data on the patients; b) the Maintenance and use of data for the study of hospital (MED-ECHO) file from the Ministry of Health and Social Services (MSSS), linked to hospital data; c) the file from the MSSS Demographic Events Register (RED), containing the date and causes of death; d) the RAMQ’s file of medical services, including requests for fee-for-service payments reimbursed by the RAMQ to registered physicians; and e) the RAMQ pharmaceutical services file, containing payment requests for prescription drugs, made by pharmacist-owners for persons under the Quebec public drug insurance plan, that is to say , the population aged 65+ and the population under the age of 65 registered with the public prescription drug insurance plan. SISMACQ data have been available since April 1996, and updated annually.

Experienced research teams on administrative databases
In partnership with the INSPQ, the platform supports several working groups (e.g. on personality disorders, substance-related disorders, the use of care in people with mental disorders), responding to the monitoring mandate of the INSPQ, and allowing authorized access to the SISMACQ via the INSPQ, because the data of the SISMACQ can not be copied or analyzed outside the INSPQ in Quebec. The agreement provides platform members for surveillance projects authorized by the INSPQ with or without additional funding, access to statisticians, analysts and scientific advisers of the INSPQ, dedicated to suicide, mood disorders and associated disorders, including substance-related disorders. It also provides the INSPQ with the possibility of analyzing data extracted by its staff, including performing advanced statistical analyzes.

Financial support for your research activities
The RQSHA platform also supports the production of publications by RQSHA students, researchers, as well as knowledge transfer activities on SISMACQ or other clinical-administrative databases, developed by researchers or organizations other than the INSPQ. , conditional on the necessary ethical authorizations. The knowledge transfer activities, carried out by the platform, are organized in conjunction with key decision-makers including the Health ministry, the INSPQ, suicide prevention organizations, managers, clinicians, researchers and students from Quebec, Canadian and international collaborators.

To join the platform
If you have a project to suggest in connection with the INSPQ’s SISMACQ, contact one of the four co-leaders of the platform. 

Also keep an eye on our annual scholarship competitions and knowledge transfer activities from which you may benefit.

Presentation of an activity of the platform (in French)