Results at a Glance – Evaluation of the Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) Contribution Program 2015-16 to 2018-19

Office of Audit and Evaluation

Program Context

The Centre for Aging + Brain Health Innovation (CABHI) is a collaboration of over 40 partners in healthcare, science, industry, not-for-profit, and government sectors. CABHI seeks to accelerate the development, validation, commercialization, and adoption of innovative products, practices, and new services to support brain health and aging, including dementia. CABHI provides funding for a variety of projects at various stages in the innovation pipeline through four main programs:

Spark, the Researcher-Clinician Partnership Program (RCP2), the Industry Innovation Partnership Program (I2P2), and the Mentorship, Capital, and Continuation Program (MC2). CABHI also funds a number of other strategic and regional programs across Canada.

CABHI received a total of $123.5 million ($42M from PHAC) over five years.

Evaluation Approach

This is the first evaluation of contributions to CABHI, and focused on how well CABHI performed in its first four years of operation - in particular, the extent to which it had achieved its key short- and medium-term objectives (i.e., improving the resources, capabilities and performance of target stakeholders). An SGBA+ lens was also applied to this evaluation.

What the Evaluation Found

In its first four years of operation, CABHI has achieved notable success by demonstrating improvements to the resources, capabilities, and performance of target stakeholders (i.e., health care providers, researchers and developers, companies, partner organizations). Of particular note, 94 new products, processes, and services were introduced into practice or brought to market, and 37 new, refined, or improved care practices were developed and introduced into practice as a result of CABHI.

CABHI's ability to move projects through the various stages of the innovation pipeline (design, develop, test, and mobilize/commercialize), supporting partnerships between the public and private sectors, their affiliation with Baycrest, a robust governance model, a well-designed and fully implemented performance measurement framework, and a demonstrated commitment to continuous improvement have been key to CABHI's accomplishments to date.

At the same time, there was no available data on the number and impact of projects directed at vulnerable populations. Similarly, given the early stages of CABHI's implementation, it is premature to assess and demonstrate the longer-term health impacts of CABHI-funded projects.

CABHI has been cost-effective in its operations, in large part due to its affiliation with Baycrest, which has allowed them to make good use of available resources, and maintain low administrative costs. CABHI has also leveraged more than $33M (both in-kind and private funding).

The most frequently cited challenge to CABHI was its reliance on federal funding (the future of which is currently unknown) and that funding from PHAC consists of features that CABHI officials and funding recipients perceive as somewhat rigid.

CABHI's approach and its funded projects are helping address health issues related to the growing seniors population in Canada. Furthermore, CABHI appears to be on its way toward its goal of improving the lives of those living with age-related and brain health issues, such as cognitive impairment and dementia.

Considerations

Should PHAC's relationship with CABHI continue beyond its original five-year agreement, the evaluation has identified the following areas of consideration for PHAC.

  1. PHAC should explore any possible flexibility in its funding agreement with CABHI.

  2. CABHI has started to engage with diverse populations, such as Indigenous populations, and is focusing on diversity more broadly to include geographic differences and rural communities. However, PHAC should encourage CABHI to make more of an effort to gather specific data on how funded projects target and benefit vulnerable populations.

  3. Considering they have vastly exceeded nearly all of their original targets, PHAC should encourage CABHI to review and update these targets and find the right balance in setting targets that are both challenging and realistic. As well, they should ensure that long-term health impacts are sufficiently represented in the collection of future performance data.

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