Project Summary
Background: Working with Families USA’s growing stakeholder networks, the project team aims to disseminate and promote the use of PCOR to address priority areas.
Proposed Solution to the Problem: Families USA will build on its previous success in disseminating PCOR to consumer advocates and key decision makers seeking to integrate health equity into health system transformation efforts. The team will do this by focusing on two areas of great concern to advocates and other key stakeholders: maternal morbidity and mortality and behavioral health.
Objectives: The primary objective is to elevate PCORI-funded research so that advocates and other stakeholders can utilize the best available evidence to inform policy solutions that advance equity.
Activities:
• Developing three PCOR-focused training modules aimed at engaging: Families USA’s network of 1,600 state and national partner organizations and 8,000 individual healthcare consumer and community leaders within the Health Action Network; the more than 300 members of the growing Health Equity Action for Transformation Network; and members of the Health Equity Task Force for Delivery & Payment Transformation.
• Convening a roundtable for PCORI-funded researchers, advocates, and other key stakeholders not previously engaged in PCOR utilization. This “New PCOR Stakeholder Convening” roundtable will be held in conjunction with the annual Health Action Conference (the largest gathering of consumer health advocates and related health stakeholders in the nation), which will also include PCOR-focused programming. The roundtable will occur during the preconference activities, so it will precede the Health Action Conference in January 2022.
• Providing a communications training workshop for key advocates and stakeholders to improve their ability to more effectively communicate and disseminate PCOR findings to additional key stakeholders and other intended audiences. The training will be led by Families USA’s senior communications team, which possesses extensive experience in carrying out strategic communications planning and training. The team also plans on involving PCORI-funded researchers on a consulting basis.
Projected Outcomes and Outputs:
Short-term outcomes:
• Strong network of health equity and racial justice leaders prepared to advocate for PCOR use in policy making
• Families USA and project partners become key, trusted sources of information for advocates and other stakeholders seeking to understand and use PCOR in decision making.
Medium- to long-term outcomes:
• PCORI evidence in two new areas—maternal health and behavioral health equity—is effectively disseminated and helps inform stakeholder decisions (measured by numbers accessing webinars and publications; post-event surveys and other feedback on webinar, conference, and other presentation sessions; and tracking of PCOR usage by stakeholders).
• Key advocates and stakeholders use improved communication skills to more effectively communicate and disseminate PCORI findings to additional key stakeholders and other intended audiences (measured by number of advocates and other stakeholders participating in training; post-event surveys and other feedback; and tracking utilization of new skills through follow-up with participants).
Deliverables:
• Three information modules created and disseminated
• One new PCOR stakeholder convening
• One strategic communication training for key advocates and stakeholders
• One PCOR presentation at Health Action Conference
• Additional presentations about PCOR by project staff
Patient and Stakeholder Engagement Plan: This project is focused on engagement of consumer advocates, health equity advocates, and other community and service leaders through the team’s existing and expanding Health Equity Task Force, the HEAT Network, and the Health Action Network.
The central goal in this engagement work is to facilitate the participation of grassroots leaders in outcomes research, community-level care delivery and decision making, and state and national policy making regarding care delivery and payment.
Project Collaborators: Project collaborators include members of the Health Equity Task Force for Delivery & Payment Transformation. Since its inception in 2018, the task force has been working together to develop consumer-focused policy priorities to advance health equity through health system transformation efforts at the national, state, and local levels, and to coordinate efforts to advance those priorities.
In addition to the task force, Families USA will work with members of both the national Health Equity Action for Transformation (HEAT) Network (composed of approximately 350 community leaders from throughout the nation and other individuals interested in furthering health equity), as well as the national Health Action Network (composed of nearly 8,000 leading healthcare advocates and related stakeholders in nearly all 50 states). Together, the participants will create a broader learning community of diverse stakeholders who otherwise might remain siloed and unable to communicate or learn from each other.