Category: Unit 8

https://anchor.fm/kwantlen-brenda/episodes/The-state-of-indigenous-procurement-in-British-Columbia-e2hprl.

What comes across is your passion about your work and the subject matter of Indigenous procurement in BC.

You are clear about what the problem is in your local setting and discuss what has worked and what has not worked. Listed are five issues that indigenous procurement struggles with in order that indigenous companies can either wholly be awarded a tender or work with non-indigenous companies for economic development and employment.  I learned a lot from your podcast.

Difficult to note were the specifics of an action study. Commented in point four, “so more investigation is needed to understand why more indigenous contract opportunities did not happen. Was the value of the credits under the tender not high enough to entice non-indigenous companies to partner with indigenous businesses? Or did the quotes from the indigenous community owned business not offer enough value?” Both sounded like great potential action study questions.

Point five mentions there is a new model developed by some indigenous companies that operate wholly independently and have created opportunities by sub-contracting jobs such as safety flagging and an expertise in operations management might be needed. Perhaps another opportunity for an action study is understanding the barriers and successes of one independent sub-contractor.

The nine-minute mark introduced possible subject matter to study. Discussed was a survey to the government, indigenous communities and construction companies to understand what has and has not worked to date. The second question was to review best practices across Canada. Both are great ideas, and important to study, however the lens seems to be a little too wide for an action study. Plano-Clarke and Creswell discuss “the problem in an action research study is one that is being faced by a single practitioner or a single organization” (Plano-Clark & Creswell, 2015, p. 431). An important concept from Plano-Clark and Creswell (2015) is “with an emphasis on self-reflection and learning, practitioners also choose to conduct action research to advance their own professional development as an important component of addressing local problems (p. 434). Personally, I feel that as servant leaders who are passionate about our practice, it is hard to narrow the lens to very focused, local issues as we want to help solve problems for a wider audience.

You raise a lot of great questions based on your extensive knowledge of the subject matter. If you were to prioritize which question in your practice intrigued you the most, or what question if you had the answer to would positively affect the most people, what would it be? Could you design an action study to get the answer to that one question?

Plano-Clark, V., & Creswell, J. (2015). Understanding research: A consumer’s guide (2nd ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

I work in the pharmaceutical sector managing a team of representatives who work in addiction medicine and whose goal is to help open access to treatment. Canada is in the middle of an opioid overdose crisis. My company makes Suboxone, a product for addiction and dependence to opioids, diagnosed as opioid use disorder (OUD). My representatives meet with health care professionals (HCP’s) to raise awareness of OUD with a view to educate and help patients get the treatment they deserve. Currently, it is mostly addiction medicine physicians that treat OUD. Family physicians have the capacity to treat uncomplicated OUD or maintain patients in treatment if medication was initiated elsewhere. In many cases, family physicians are reluctant or refuse to accept patients for maintenance treatment.  The problem is that acceptance for patients to get maintenance therapy in family practice, where they want it, is limited.  I want to dig deeper with family physicians regarding the barriers to treat OUD so patients can get treatment with their family doctor.

I propose an action study at two Family Health Teams (FHT’s), one treating and one not treating OUD, and discuss barriers to treatment.  I would conduct a quantitative arm looking at a successful program and find out when they started, how many patients have been treated, how many physicians referred to the treating physician or nurse and then do a qualitative review of what barriers had to be overcome for success.  I would conduct a qualitative study of a FHT that is not treating OUD to get details of the barriers, challenges and hesitations. I feel that by getting to the specific barriers it will help focus efforts to open access to OUD treatment, thereby reducing the death rate.

Figure from: Special Advisory Committee on the Epidemic of Opioid Overdoses. National report: Apparent opioid-related deaths in Canada (January 2016 to March 2018) Web-based Report. Ottawa: Public Health Agency of Canada; September 2018.