Project Summary
Background: State health policy makers frequently face policy decisions for which useful, appropriate evidence is lacking. Where evidence exists, state policy makers report they have limited capacity to find, evaluate, and translate evidence such as patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) into policy. As PCORI’s investments in PCOR begin to materialize into results, there will be a surge of newly available findings to help inform policy making.
Solution: To bridge the gap between research and state health policy making, NASHP’s project “Engaging State Health Policymakers to Explore the Policy Implications and Impact of PCOR” will engage a work group of state health policy makers with emerging PCOR results, and create an opportunity to explore their policy implications and identify the best approaches for disseminating PCOR findings more broadly to wider audiences of policy makers.
Objectives:
- Convening a work group of state health policy makers to explore emerging PCOR findings, their potential policy implications, and effective approaches to disseminating PCOR to policy makers
- Monitoring, identifying, and sharing emerging PCOR findings with the work group
- Collecting information on how state officials are using PCOR and analyzing the impact of PCOR on state health policy
- Sharing information to a broader audience of policy makers beyond the work group through written products
Activities: NASHP will facilitate quarterly meetings of a work group of state health policy makers for six quarters. Policy makers will discuss emerging PCOR study findings, their policy implications, and connections to existing programs and policies in order to put findings in context. To share findings beyond the work group, NASHP will produce a blog series. The fourth work group meeting will be in person at NASHP’s Annual State Health Policy Conference. It will be an in-depth discussion of a specific topic chosen by the work group, key PCOR findings on the topic, other relevant research, and policy considerations. NASHP will produce a brief and webinar on the topic selected.
Outcomes:
- The work group members will be made aware of emerging PCOR findings.
- Through cross-state and cross-agency discussion, the work group meetings will yield an understanding of the policy implications of emerging findings.
- The work group meetings will create a feedback loop on how states are using research and the actual impact of PCOR on policy making.
- The work group meetings will yield direct feedback on the best topics, content, and format for disseminating PCOR to policy makers, which will be shared with PCORI to help inform future dissemination products aimed at this stakeholder group.
- A blog series, brief, and webinar will broaden the project’s reach to the wider state health policy community.
Patient Engagement Plan: NASHP will engage patients/consumers as members of the work group for input on what emerging PCOR means for policy making and program implementation. The insights from having patient voices on the work group calls and in the in-person meeting will be captured and disseminated as part of the blogs and brief.
Project Collaborator: The Center for Evidence-based Policy (CEbP) brings expertise in conducting and reviewing research to help improve health outcomes. CEbP’s participation will ensure scientific integrity in the exploration of emerging PCOR findings and help identify other relevant research to put emerging PCOR into context.
Reck, Jennifer, Bacon, Olivia, “NASHP Workgroup Bridges Research and Health Care Policy” State Health Policy Blog, January 30, 2018
Reck, Jennifer, Bacon, Olivia, “Policymakers Weigh Patient-Centered Research on Care Models for Individuals with Serious Mental Illness” State Health Policy Blog, April 24, 2018