Engagement Coordinating Center for PCORnet

The Engagement Coordinating Center (ECC) for PCORnet^®, the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, is a partnership between AcademyHealth and the Patient Advocate Foundation (PAF) created to describe patient and stakeholder engagement practices and provide opportunities for peer-to-peer learning across PCORnet.

The ECC will lead efforts to promote promising engagement approaches across networks through scanning, categorizing, and sharing engagement practices.

Specifically, the ECC will scan and categorize promising engagement practices through:

• Facilitating an introductory meeting with networks to introduce the purpose and objectives of the ECC, members of the team, planned activities, and to obtain feedback
• Compiling a practice scan that incorporates a network-wide review and synthesis of previous and current engagement efforts, including descriptive methodology and evidence of effectiveness and/or impact
• Creating a practice categorization that outlines the promising practices according to a set of domains to identify engagement methodological trends, successes, challenges, and perceived engagement influences and impacts

The ECC will also share promising practices of engagement through:

• Hosting Show and Share webinars that offer networks an opportunity to share successful engagement practices 
• Coordinating Town Hall webinars that allow networks to convene and discuss network-identified topics of importance, supporting peer-to-peer learning and bi-directional communication across networks
• Organizing a virtual meeting to foster overall network cohesion, review compiled engagement practices and categorization, and promote sharing of promising practices and offer opportunities for joint problem-solving among the participating networks
• Identifying and sharing dissemination opportunities for networks, including national conferences, journal calls for submissions, and other high-profile avenues