Table 4 Influence on factors that affect policy-making

 Viewing the landscape (A)

“From my perspective in my role here, it’s really important for me to understand what kind of a landscape is out there of different views around issues. So that’s a key part of our policy assessment, of what ideas might fly and what ideas are likely not going to be supported.” [PSO2]

 Seeding new ideas (A, F)

“The exchange allows here just an exchange of ideas. So hopefully put other than your own thoughts and our own views, based on where we worked or how we see things functioning. I would hope that it’s kind of broadened everyone’s mind about different ways to do things.” [NSO2]

 Socializing ideas (A, F)

“I think policy dialogues like that, like these big large events are important because of how they socialize information, not because of how they influence decisions. When I was a policy-maker, the really important discussions for me often were very small groups, or Chatham House Rule type thing. Because then I could test out ideas, and I could see directly where stakeholders I had to get outside were going with this.” [PPM1]

 Prioritizing options (A, F)

“As I listen to this, I understand the sophistication of the ideas, the relative sophistication of the ideas, I guess, that’s-- people are positioning around, and so on. It helps me kind of make my mind up about what I’m going to advocate about.” [PPM1]

 Forming a tighter consensus (A, F)

“But what you see through a conference like that, is you see the broad socialization of idea and a chance to critique it. You see broad support for it, and perhaps as importantly, no one’s saying ‘No, don’t do that.’ Which makes it a lot safer for folks.” [PPM1]

 Shaping options for discussion (F)

“I think by having a more detailed discussion like this you get down to some of the mechanics and then you realize these are some very different policies that [province] is doing… and I think you really need to get down to that more detailed level of the policy mechanics” [PB03SI]

 Creating a more cohesive policy community (A, F)

“I think events like that confirm that you weren’t alone in this, you weren’t crazy, certainly when you were-- you go and speak with people in the minister’s office and justify why you’re doing this or that. You could say, ‘Hey, the rest of Canada is thinking the same thing too.’ Since I was the only one from the … Ministry there, and I recall it was useful for me to be able to sort of reference that conversation to folks afterward, certainly” [PPM2]

“It really, I think, led to just a more cohesive community, less confrontational, because more leaders from different sides of the equation knew each other. And it allowed for free-forum, free-flow discussion on a whole range of policy issues that, when you put people in rooms where they’re wearing their hats and their titles you don’t always have that kind of possibility.” [NSO2]

 Face-to-face connection (A, F)

“So, it was more what I gained from those dialogues was more like a connection. I knew that there was an incentive somewhere and I could contact someone that would [?] me to the appropriate person.” [PPM4]

“Honestly I think that the only role they bring is connecting people in a room.” [R7]

 Will for change (A, F)

“Well for me as an observer and a participant there, the remarkable thing to me was that everybody knows what the problems are and it’s a lack of political will on the part of governments, on the part of physician representation organizations. Just everybody shares the blaming as far as the current system is concerned, and the notion of moving away from it.” [PSO2]

 Centralized evidence-gathering (A, F)

“Perhaps something that actually transcends the political process as well, and not just collaboration among the provinces and territories, but really collaboration that sets a Canadian tone, a Canadian perspective - particularly on the evidence side. We kept on hearing the notion of the evidence perhaps collected at the national level, or pan-Canadian level, but perhaps interpreted at a provincial and territorial level” [PPM1].

 Centralized benchmarks (A, F)

“…the policy makers said, ‘Well, why are you presenting option one, option two, option three? We need all these options together. We just need to see how we can put in place all the conditions and make sure that we can anticipate the different consequences of doing that and that and that, not taking them separately and analyzing the evidence on each aspect.’”[R16]

 Common performance measures (F, E)

“There’s a few clinical indicators that we probably can say - it should be eight - but there’s relatively few. Good performance is what’s better than just about everyone else and what’s getting better over time. And so building on that, I take [event participant name]’s point. I’d say agree entirely now, and one of the most important things we could do is actually have comparable measures of performance, not just within a jurisdiction but across the jurisdictions in this country.” [PPM1]