Project Summary
Background: Patient and family advisory councils (PFACs) are collections of engaged patients connected to healthcare institutions. PFACs are well positioned to give feedback to researchers on their projects and to share new patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) ideas with research teams. In dialogue with the well-established Comagine Health PFAC, the project team decided an adaptation and subsequent workshops using the existing guidebook, “Building Successful Collaborations with Communities: A Guidebook for Community Organizations, Leaders and Members” presents opportunities to enhance the skill set for Utah PFACs and engage researchers with PFACs to advance PCOR in Utah.
Proposed Solution to the Problem: This project will engage members of Utah PFACs to adapt a successful workshop and guidebook for PFAC members. Following the workshops, the project will use new and established venues for researchers and PFAC members to interact and produce collaborations. Workshops will be held in the Salt Lake City area.
Objectives: This project will improve the ability of PFACs to engage with researchers, develop mutually beneficial researcher and PFAC relationships, identify factors leading to successful partnerships, produce PFAC and researcher guidebook materials to be used to deliver trainings, and develop a plan to adapt the PFAC workshops to a virtual format to reach rural or other communities with barriers to in-person attendance. Long term, the team will increase regular contact between PFACs and researchers to see an increase in PCORI funding to Utah.
Activities and Projected Outcomes and Outputs: Through a 12-month collaboration, the project will yield a PFAC-oriented guidebook and two workshops with evaluations. Additionally, the team will leverage collaboration events resulting in five PFAC-researcher consultations and an assessment of the qualities of two of the consultations. A scalability plan will inform future rural and virtual engagement.
Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan: The Comagine Health PFAC meets monthly and will use these events to address project strategy and planning over 12 months. Interested Comagine Health PFAC members and additional recruited PFAC members from Utah will help adapt the guidebook in five to 10 working sessions. PFAC members across Utah will be invited to attend and evaluate two in-person workshops designed to advance their capacity to collaborate with researchers. The network of researchers at the University of Utah and Intermountain Healthcare will be engaged through strong existing partnerships such as the annual Health Services Research meeting to consult with PFACs engaged in these trainings.
Project Collaborators: Strong partnerships include the University of Utah Center for Clinical and Translational Science (CCTS), the Community Collaboration and Engagement Team (CCET), and Consumers Advancing Patient Safety as subawardees; the Health Services Research annual conference planning team with researchers and community members from several institutions, including Intermountain Healthcare and Community Faces of Utah; and the newly formed University of Utah PFACs.