Dr. Simone Dahrouge

Biography

Dr. Simone Dahrouge is an Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Ottawa. She held a CIHR new investigator salary award (2014-2019) and obtained $17 million of peer reviewed funding as Principal or Nominated Principal Investigator since her academic appointment in 2011.

Dr. Dahrouge’s program of research is centered on optimizing primary care quality and equity through two research programs. The first area of focus is improving access to primary health care for vulnerable populations. She uses health administrative data to understand health system performance and identify care gaps, and applies a pragmatic approach to addressing these gaps. As an example, to tackle the barriers individuals with social complexities face in achieving appropriate access to needed care, she established the Access Community Resources (ARC); a navigation support initiative embedded in primary care that links individuals to the health and social services that best address their need(s). The second research foci centers on how to best support primary practices achieve their quality goals. She established and directed the Ottawa Practice Enhancement Network (OPEN) ; a primary care learning collaborative to advance primary care. In partnership with other similar collaboratives across Ontario (POPLAR) and Canada (CPCSSN) she innovates on approaches to promote ongoing efforts to improve quality care in family practices.