In the 1990s, O'Connor focused on nurse and patient decisional conflicts. She co-wrote a chapter with Linda O'Brien-Pallas about this topic and began developing a conceptual framework to create a patient decision aid program. After meeting with government health officials, O'Connor began the Patient Decision Aids Research Group in 1995 with Peter Tugwell.[4] Together, they began the Patient Decision Aids Research Group to research health care related solutions to arthritis, diabetes, various cancers and heart disease.[5] In 2004–05, she was awarded the University of Ottawa Award for Excellence in Research[6] and the John M. Eisenberg Award for Practical Application of Medical Decision Making Research by the Society for Medical Decision Making.[7] With funding from Bell Canada, O'Connor was also named director of the Bell Patient Decision Support Laboratory in February 2004. The laboratory, in partnership with the Ottawa Hospital Foundation, was created to help train medical practitioners in decision making and assist in aiding patients.[8] This included funding for computer workstations, online decision aids, audio and video recording equipment and meeting rooms for focus groups and interviews.[9]
The following year, O'Connor led a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Group in Decision Support and the International Cochrane Review of Trials of Decision Aids.[10] As a result of her work at the Ottawa Health Research Institute regarding developing decision, O'Connor was awarded the Ottawa Life Sciences Council 2006 Health Innovation Award.[11][12]
In 2012, O'Connor was awarded the Career Achievement Award by the Society for Medical Decision Making[13][7] and later was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.[14] As well, as a result of her research, O'Connor was honoured as a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Consumer Decision Support.[15]
