Margaret Harrison
BN (1979)
Leading the way with PhD
Margaret Harrison was the first graduate of McMaster University’s PhD in Clinical Health Sciences (Nursing) in 1998. After working as a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Health Research Institute she joined Queen’s University (2000-2013) and is now Professor Emerita, Queen’s University School of Nursing.
Advance-practice partnership
She was a founding member and Senior Scientist with the Queen’s Practice and Research in Nursing Group (PRN), an innovative academic-practice partnership to advance practice through research at the point-of-care. In this role she led the development of a Joanna Briggs Centre at Queen’s University – the first North American centre of this collaboration to synthesize evidence for practice.
Knowledge translation
Professor Harrison’s research program has been focused on continuity of care for complex health populations and this led her into the field of knowledge translation. Using guidelines and other evidence tools was an instrumental strategy in designing interventions to improve continuity. Her work in evidence-based practice and knowledge translation was recognized with receipt of the Queen’s Basmajian medal for research. This research has placed her at the forefront in the field of knowledge translation (KT) as a recognized scholar nationally and internationally.
Highlights of her research include:
• In 2013 her work on practice-research partnerships was awarded best paper by STTI
• Co-developer of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Knowledge-to-Action framework
• She established and served as Director on the first North American centre of Joanna Briggs Institute (2004) at Queen’s University
• In 2009, under her leadership as Principal Investigator, the Queen’s Joanna Briggs Collaboration received 5-year national (CIHR) funding to focus on patient safety
• She was a founding member of the international ADAPTE collaboration, a group developing rigorous methods to adapt quality guidelines for different contexts.
• Lead developer of CAN-IMPLEMENT - a rigorous and practice-based tool to adapt and implement practice guidelines
• As lead research she developed and tested a supportive care approach for educating patient and families dealing with heart failure that is now housed at the Canadian Heart and Stroke Foundation (http://www.heartandstroke.com/atf/cf/%7B99452D8B-E7F1-4BD6-A57D-B136CE6C95BF%7D/manage-heart-failure-en.pdf )
Dedicated teacher
Professor Harrison has been a dedicated teacher having taught in nursing undergraduate and graduate programs at the University of Ottawa and Queen’s University, supervised graduate students including the first two PhD candidates from Queen’s nursing doctoral program (spring 2013).
National Research Funding
In the last 15 years she has received more than $4.6 million in national research funding and her scholarship in nursing and KT includes 125 peer-reviewed papers, a book on implementation, 16 book chapters and >150 presentations at international and national conferences.