Raymond Bargas takes a deep breath for Tillman Farley, M.D., who blends research and practice in Brighton, Colo. Farley won an AAFP research grant last year. (Photo by Jane Stoever/AAFP)
Say 'Aaah!' to research
AAFP initiative makes research stronger focus for specialty
The Academy launched its five-year, $7.72 million research initiative in 1998, and the specialty's researchers are responding with enthusiasm, energy and creativity.
The Task Force to Enhance Family Practice Research thought it might get 20-30 applications for AAFP's three up-to-$900,000 grants for research centers. Instead, 66 centers applied.
The task force figured 50-60 family physicians might request training grants for up to $100,000 to advance their research skills, but 102 applied.
"The research fires are burning," said task force chair Joseph Scherger, M.D., M.P.H., of Irvine, Calif. "We're just providing more lighter fluid."
Family practice has continually improved its patient care and education of future FPs, said Scherger.
"Our one underdeveloped area is research," he said. "We're vulnerable to health systems that want documentation of our effectiveness. We're vulnerable to our specialty colleagues who say they should take care of problems such as asthma and diabetes."
In September, the Academy held a press conference to announce its three newly designated research centers. The university-based researchers work in Ohio, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Missouri.
"The AAFP is putting its money where all of primary care has been putting its collective mouth," said John Eisenberg, M.D., director of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, at the press conference.
In October, the Academy selected eight individuals for its first cycle of advanced research training grants.
"Too many doctors in private practice neglect research because the office is so hectic, and academicians neglect the practice side of things," said grant recipient Tillman Farley, M.D., of Brighton, Colo. "Actually, you can think of every practice as a lab."
Farley belongs to the Ambulatory Sentinel Practice Network, founded in 1978 as the first U.S. practice-based research network. With his grant, he'll take courses and track risk factors for mental health problems. He believes every patient visit has a psychosocial component.
"In ambulatory care, nobody goes to the doctor until their stress level is such that going is better than not going," Farley said.
His predominantly low-income, minority patients will be part of his research; he hopes to find ways to prevent mental health problems in such populations, based on his research.
Task force member Barbara Yawn, M.D., M.Sc., of Rochester, Minn., chaired a meeting on practice-based research networks in September. At the meeting, representatives of academic centers, large and small practices, managed care organizations, federal agencies and the pharmaceutical industry agreed that practices provide the best sites for studies that translate evidence into real-world patient care.
The task force found that some 6,000-8,000 FPs belong to practice-based research networks. "That's a large number of family physicians doing research as they practice," Yawn said. "We're excited about it!"
By Jane Stoever, Managing Editor
On tap in 1999, 2000
Through the research initiative, the AAFP will:
- award advanced research training grants,
- issue a request for proposals for research within managed care organizations,
- stimulate research in practice-based research networks, and
- hold a national meeting on primary care research, a gathering of family physicians and representatives of foundations and federal agencies.
"We're after research that matters, that makes a difference to how we care for patients."
-- Joseph Scherger, M.D., M.P.H.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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