Project Summary
Background: Currently, the Community Health Improvement Plan (CHIP) identifies the need to increase potential impact, mobilize partners (including Dell Medical School), promote collaboration among stakeholders, identify evidence-based strategies, and explore coalition-building approaches, in order to expand and strengthen the cross-city/cross-organization mental health assessment process in Austin/Travis County, Texas.
Solution: This project seeks to create a blueprint for implementing a collaborative and engaged community research environment by establishing the Collaborative Council for Mental Health (CCMH) to foster long-term patient-centered outcomes research and comparative effectiveness research (PCOR/CER) across the county.
Objectives:
- Establish an affiliate Community-Campus Partnership for Health (CCPH)
- Create guidelines to incorporate PCOR/CER knowledge into foundation grant-making practice
- Develop a culture of patient-centered/collaborative research at Dell Medical School (DMS)
Activities: CCMH member project activities focus on investigation, training, outreach, and dissemination of their work as they seek to carry out the aims of the project.
Outcomes/Outputs: The deliverables of the project are as follows: establishment of an affiliate CCPH for the ongoing expansion of an academic and community partnership for stakeholder-engaged research; development of governance and compensation guidelines for the transparent and open process of the organizational structure and function; development and implementation of the CCMH Champion training to foster the leadership and skills needed for stakeholder-engaged research; development of guidelines to incorporate and expand the advancement of PCOR/CER knowledge in foundation grant-making practices; and the creation of a culture of patient-centered/collaborative research and consultation service at Dell Medical School for the realization of patient-centered and other stakeholder-engaged research.
Engagement: The patients and stakeholders are drawn from NAMI, Austin Public Health, Integral Care, Dell Medical School, and others at the direction of the members to form the CCMH. Whether creating the governance guidelines, engaging in research leadership training, or serving as CCMH Champions, members are engaged throughout all phases of the organization’s development and program delivery.
Collaborators: In addition to the project co-collaborators, PCOR Ambassador Anjum Khurshid and PCOR expert Liz Jacobs, Al Richmond of Community-Campus Partnerships for Health, and Gay Thomas and Betty Kaiser of the Wisconsin Network for Research Support are providing support for this project.