Project Summary
Background: Clinic staff, such as medical assistants and nurses, have the potential to be highly effective partners in patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR). However, few resources exist to prepare clinic staff to support research or guide researchers to meaningfully engage clinic staff.
Proposed Solution to the Problem: The project team’s proposed solution to this problem is to scale up the adoption of the Research Ready tools that were created in a previous Engagement Award project, titled “Clinic Staff as a Unique Stakeholder Group in PCOR.” The proposed project aims to disseminate, implement, and evaluate Research Ready with nationwide reach to create a healthcare workforce that is prepared to engage with and champion PCOR.
Objectives:
• Increase use of Research Ready tools
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the Research Ready training
• Disseminate Research Ready and best practices for its implementation to the healthcare and research communities
Activities:
• Convene stakeholders from the healthcare, research, and patient communities to inform all project phases
• Provide training to healthcare practices using Research Ready tools and collect feedback from participants
• Use implementation science frameworks to identify factors that affect successful use of Research Ready tools
• Present findings at meetings of professional organizations for healthcare and research communities
Outcomes:
- Short-term:
- Evidence of the efficacy of Research Ready tools
- Identification of facilitators and barriers to successful implementation of Research Ready tools
- Significance: Build evidence base for use of Research Ready tools. Understand how to optimize dissemination and implementation of the tools.
- Medium-term:
- Documentation of best practices for implementation of Research Ready
- Dissemination of project findings and implementation guidance
- Significance: Increase use of Research Ready tools
- Long-term:
- Sustained availability of Research Ready tools and implementation guidance via LPHI’s website
- Significance: Research Ready tools support the development of a healthcare workforce that is prepared to engage in and champion PCOR.
Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan:
The primary stakeholder group for Research Ready is clinic staff; secondary stakeholders include researchers and patients. The project team engaged clinic and research stakeholder advisors from the previous Engagement Award plus patient partners and REACHnet’s Community Health Advisory Board to inform its strategy. A project advisory group of eight stakeholders, including patient partners, clinical and research personnel, will be engaged on a quarterly basis to directly contribute to all phases: planning, implementation, and evaluation. Clinic staff and leadership’s feedback will be collected when trainings are conducted.
Project Collaborators:
Clinical research networks and organizations that will assist in identifying and recruiting practices to implement the Research Ready training: Pennington Biomedical Research Center, North Carolina Network Consortium, ADVANCE Collaborative, OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, and the Chicago Area Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Network.
Healthcare organizations that will implement the Research Ready training: Riley Hospital for Children at Indiana University Health, Access Health Louisiana.
Professional organizations that will disseminate project findings to their membership: Association of Clinical Research Professionals, Southeast Louisiana Chapter.