The Chronic Pain Centre of Excellence partners with veterans and their families to lead a national community of care and shape the future of veteran-first chronic pain management. At the Centre of Excellence, we put veterans at the heart of everything we do: from setting the research agenda, to developing evidence-based practices, and helping veterans access care closer to home.
The Centre of Excellence partners with veterans and families to genuinely understand their unique challenges and day-to-day needs to manage their chronic pain, including exploring barriers to access care, veterans’ experiences with the discharge process from active service, the interchange between civilian and VAC healthcare services, and the intersection chronic pain has with mental illness and feelings of hopelessness and isolation.
Veterans are an essential part of our executive leadership, our Board of Directors, and make up our national Veterans Working Groups to ensure that we’re building a knowledge system that addresses the real-world needs of Canadian veterans and their families.
As the Centre of Excellence’s first step towards building a chronic pain system that works for veterans and their families, we will launch our Rapid Recommendations this summer. These Rapid Recommendations will be a shortlist of the current best practices that pain clinics and case managers can use to help veterans manage their chronic pain.
The Centre of Excellence’s activities, goals, and priorities are driven by our ongoing research, working with clinics to fine-tune best practices, and – most importantly – listening to veterans and their families. Over the long-term, the Centre of Excellence will be involved in initiating clinical trials to further develop new therapies for managing pain, growing the network of pain clinics and researchers across Canada, and continuously measuring the metrics associated with timely access to care and quality of life for veterans and their families.
Once released from active military service, it can be hard to learn how to live independently. The Centre of Excellence has compiled a list of resources below to help veterans and their families access the care they need, and know what support is available. We regularly add new resources to this list, so veterans and their families can use this website as a central hub for information.
Here about the challenges that veterans face in finding help and how much chronic pain management can help those who have served cope with their pain.
At the Centre of Excellence, we understand the daily barriers to receive the proper care that Canada’s veterans and your families face every day. We are leading a national network of pain clinics that you can access through your benefits, so that you can have care closer to home. Discover clinics across Canada, which are implementing best practices in care and are part of our network.
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