About Homewood Research Institute (HRI)

Homewood Research Institute (HRI) is an independent national charity dedicated to transforming mental health and substance use treatment in Canada and beyond.

HRI brings together North America’s leading scientists, researchers, clinicians, and individuals with lived experience to drive evidence-based change. Their approach is grounded in real-world settings—putting research into action to improve outcomes and save lives.

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The Challenge: Balancing Compliance With Capability

The HRI team was using an electronic survey platform to support data collection for their research studies. When they learned the provider was about to be acquired, they began looking for an alternative that offered Canadian-hosted servers.

While exploring options, HRI selected Voxco because it met the server requirement and offered the functionality they needed—with room to grow.

"We needed something to grow with us because we don’t know what’s gonna come next. And our worry is always to buy something and then we realize the solution couldn’t do something we want to."
— Sarah Sousa, Senior Research Associate, HRI

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At the time, additional Voxco features—like custom scripting and support services—weren’t major factors in the decision, but they ended up being a valuable bonus.

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The Solution: A Multi-Channel Approach to Longitudinal Research

"Voxco made our job easier with the right amount of sophistication and flexibility."
— Sarah Sousa, Senior Research Associate, HRI

1. Supporting Research Across Multiple Touchpoints

For the Recovery Journey Project, HRI used Voxco Online to connect with participants both during and after their treatment for substance use. Surveys were conducted on tablets while participants were in treatment, and then via email at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months post-treatment.

The ability to reach participants across multiple channels enabled HRI to run longer and more complex surveys. Survey responses were automatically uploaded to a central database, giving the team a clear view of engagement and simplifying the tracking of responses across studies.

2. Flexible Tools for Complex Calculations

Voxco’s platform allowed the team to run complex research designs by building in their own logic. Whether using custom questions or established assessment tools, they could calculate scores directly within the platform—something they previously had to do manually after collecting the data.

"Some of these tools have complex calculations to arrive at a final score. Traditionally, we’ve had to do those calculations after we collected the data, but with Voxco we can actually write in the logic to calculate the scores within the platform. This has saved us a lot of time and has given us more confidence in the results.

With Voxco we could write any combination—it didn’t matter how complex. That’s not the case with other survey platforms that only allow you to collect the data."

3. Custom Automation to Improve Efficiency

Initially, the HRI team had to manually send survey emails to participants after treatment, which required daily oversight and took up valuable staff time. Working with Voxco’s technical team, they built a custom API to automate this process.

Once a participant was added to the database, the API automatically scheduled and sent follow-up surveys over the course of a year—freeing up the team to focus on other parts of their research.

"I don’t think I realized when we brought Voxco on how much support there was around. There’s always a sense of: we’ll find the solution—or find a better way of doing it for you. If we didn’t want to build something ourselves, we could hire support to help us. That was really helpful."

4. Data Security with On-Premise Hosting

With sensitive health data at the core of their work, HRI chose Voxco’s on-premise server option to ensure full control and security of participant information.

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The Result: Accelerated Data Processing and Faster Decision-making

With built-in logic and automated follow-ups, HRI significantly reduced the time it took to generate insights. This helped the team deepen their understanding of the recovery process and translate their findings into info sheets, research publications, and conference presentations.

Automating survey distribution and data updates reduced the need for daily staff involvement. This allowed the team to expand the scale of their research—reaching more participants across Canada and running more studies at once.

"The savings of staff time and resources are huge. Voxco just allows you to do that much more in terms of breadth of research studies. Now we can survey more. We can talk to more people. Earlier, we had a limit to how many people we could collect data on at a time. Now we can reach anyone across Canada."
— Sarah Sousa, Senior Research Associate, HRI

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‍Voxco gives research teams the flexibility, power, and support to move faster—without compromising on quality. If your platform isn’t keeping up, it’s time for one that can. Book a demo now.

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