ACE is a health consulting practice led by academic researchers. We help health organizations investigate, plan, evaluate and decide. We draw on a broad network for experts with the depth of knowledge and experience your questions and context require.
ACE works with a wide range of health organizations, including service delivery organizations, government agencies, charities, industry, and professional and regulatory bodies. Our projects can run from a few weeks to over a year. These are the deliverables or topics we’re asked for most often.
Systematic, scoping, rapid, realist and meta-narrative reviews that show what is known, what is emerging and what others are doing, designed to fit your timeline. We combine published research, grey literature and scans of other jurisdictions and organizations with input from our experts, and turn the findings into clear implications for your organization.
Program, policy and strategy evaluations, often built on case study methods scaled to the question, from rapid “mini” case studies to multi-site comparative evaluations. We draw on interviews, documents and data to explain what is working, why, and what to change.
Economic evaluations, economic modelling, health technology assessment and economic strategy for public and private sector health organizations. We evaluate what a program, service or technology costs, what it delivers and how it compares with alternatives, in terms that funders and decision-makers can use.
Analysis and practical tools for health professions and the organizations that regulate and represent them, including workforce mapping and supply analysis, service coding and pricing frameworks, and practice guidance. We build them with the people who will use them, in formats that can be updated as needs change.
Delphi panels, nominal group technique processes and facilitated workshops that help health system stakeholders find common ground on complex or contested issues. We increasingly use emerging digital tools to customize each process, improving both efficiency and results.
Strategic plans and the analysis behind them, for individual organizations and for wider health system initiatives. We assess the strategic context, evaluate current strategies and engage stakeholders, drawing on multidisciplinary academic experts to bring in perspectives that might not otherwise be considered.
Every ACE project is led by a member of our core team, with others supporting as needed. When a question calls for specialized knowledge, we recruit advisors from our extensive network of academic experts. Depending on your needs, they:
ACE began as a centre within the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation (IHPME) at the University of Toronto, and that community of experts is often where we start. Academic expertise can be hard to navigate from the outside. We speak the language, understand the nuances between disciplines and find experts whose availability fits your needs. You get breadth across disciplines and depth on your specific question, with the focus and timelines of a consulting team.
Methods that are defensible and stand up to scrutiny, applied practically to fit your timelines and needs.
We inform your discussions, debates and decisions through unbiased, non-partisan evidence gathering and interpretation.
We fit every project to your needs, with attention to efficiency, timeliness and relevant expertise.
We’re actively innovating our methods, including with AI, to tackle our work in ways that weren’t possible before. It’s changing what we can offer clients and how we work with them.
That includes building custom tools for our projects quickly and efficiently: online platforms to improve consensus processes, web-based tools to enhance review and feedback, and workshop approaches that improve engagement, efficiency and insight. It also includes developing new approaches to analysis and presentation, from interpreting evidence reviews and mapping health workforces to new ways of displaying results.
Public, private and non-profit organizations across the health sector, in Canada and abroad.
Share a few details about your question, challenge or project through the form below, or email us.
We can set up a free 30-minute call to better understand your question, your needs, and how ACE could help.
We prepare a costed proposal setting out the approach, timeline and team.
We work closely with you from start to finish, drawing on expert advisors where needed and engaging your team at each key stage.
All members of our core team hold academic appointments at Canadian universities. We also often hire talented graduate students as research assistants, who bring additional experience and insight to your project.
Mark is the Managing Director of ACE, which he founded in 2017. He is also an Associate Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, based in the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto. While always maintaining a foot in academia, Mark has held a number of positions that connect health services, systems and policy research with the leadership of national and provincial health agencies, including at the Health Council of Canada, Health Quality Ontario, and Cancer Care Ontario. Mark was also the inaugural Executive Director of Converge3 – a policy research centre based at the University of Toronto that leveraged province-wide research expertise to provide evidence-informed guidance to health system stakeholders, including the Ontario Ministry of Health. His primary research interests focus on making connections between researchers and decision-makers more effective and efficient to support better use of evidence for practice and policy.
Lucas is an Assistant Professor in Management at the Ted Rogers School of Management at the Toronto Metropolitan University and affiliate professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Lucas is an academic and a consultant. He has provided executive education to a range of global companies and he is the co-founder of Performance Lab, which employs scientific methods to solve concrete managerial problems. His research interests include the socialization of newcomers, talent management and the optimization of innovation and creativity.
Rebecca is an Adjunct Professor in the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. She has extensive experience in both the private and public sectors as a consultant and health economist. Rebecca is passionate about using health economic evidence to inform real world decision-making and policy. She has conducted research in a variety of clinical areas and settings, serving governments, local and global pharmaceutical companies, start-ups, device manufacturers, hospitals, and the academic community. As a senior health economist at the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Rebecca supported policy development for key priorities. She also holds an order-in-council appointment to serve as an advisory member on Ontario's Committee to Evaluate Drugs.
Roger is a Full Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, Memorial University of Newfoundland. He prides himself on helping organizations use evidence and research to support optimal decision-making and foster improvements for patients and clients. He has experience working with a wide range of stakeholders, including federal and provincial agencies, regional health authorities, and hospitals. He has expertise in the areas of program evaluation, health policy, health services research, child health research, applied qualitative research, public/patient engagement, and cross-jurisdictional comparisons. He is a co-editor of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research's Public Engagement in Health Casebook, author of the book Allocating Health Care Resources in Canada and has published in numerous academic journals. He is also a senior advisor at Lennika Consulting.
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