The Academy's National Research Network is chalking up successes. The NRN grew from 112 clinician members in 90 practices in 1999, when it began, to 312 clinicians (including 284 family physicians) in 202 practices as of May 2005. In addition, the total funding awarded to the NRN since its inception has reached $3.6 million. The NRN’s growth and the projects it has undertaken are documented in the network’s annual report to the AAFP Board of Directors.
Annual Report Shows Growth of Research Network
By Jane Stoever
9/7/2005
Between June 2004 and May 2005, the NRN had three manuscripts accepted for publication and made more than 24 conference presentations. The network is opening a residency branch that is expected to help residents learn that "involvement in practice-based research is possible and fun," says the annual report. The NRN also is reaching out to regional research networks to welcome them as formal affiliate members later this year.
"The successes and expansion of the National Research Network illustrate the continued support of the Academy for family medicine research and the growing importance of practice-based research networks as forums for advancing primary care across the nation," says Wilson Pace, M.D., NRN's director, professor of family medicine at the University of Colorado at Denver and the UC Health Sciences Center, and a recently appointed member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Identifying and Preventing Medication Errors.
The Ambulatory Sentinel Practice Network, precursor to the NRN, ceased operations in 1999, and its board worked with the Academy to recruit clinicians to AAFP's new network, says Pace. About 120 NRN clinicians once were in ASPN, which had about 450 active members in the 1990s.
In 2003, the NRN began a membership drive focusing on states without regional research networks and on large cities with underserved populations. The NRN is trying to recruit more minority physicians and nonacademic FPs, says the annual report.
In May, the NRN had nine active projects:
- Improving Communication During Office Visits, which assesses the effectiveness of a program to improve communication among patients, their physicians and other health care providers in primary care;
- Improving Communication During Office Visits: Continuation Project, which addresses possible long-term outcomes associated with enhanced advocacy for patients and health communication with their physicians;
- Spirometry Use in Family Medicine Pilot, which uses experts from family medicine and pulmonology to verify spirometry results interpreted by FPs;
- Evaluating Tools for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention, which tests a computer-based family history tool in FPs' offices;
- Initiative to Improve Depression Care, which identifies and tests chronic care office systems to improve monitoring of patients with depression and adjust their treatment during acute and continuing phases -- a project also involving the American College of Physicians and the American Psychiatric Association;
- Evaluation of Hepatitis C Shared Decision Tool, which gathers data on the usefulness of a decision tool from the perspectives of clinicians and patients;
- PBRN Representativeness Project, which examines the extent to which NRN physicians represent the larger population of family physicians with respect to self-reported clinical practices/behaviors and knowledge and beliefs about selected clinical issues;
- Patient Safety Pilot Study: Physician, Staff and Patient-Reported Errors in Primary Care, which has yielded two reports in a compendium of patient safety research co-published by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and the Department of Defense; and
- Estimating Rates and Describing Causes and Consequences of Testing Process Errors Detected in Family Physician Offices, which analyzes data about laboratory and imaging process errors and generates hypotheses to avert the errors.
The NRN's five-year goals include aligning its work with AAFP efforts to support transition to the new model of care proposed in the Future of Family Medicine report.
NRN's annual report will be sent to NRN members this fall. To obtain a copy of the report or to request information on joining the NRN, call Tom Stewart, research network coordinator, at (800) 274-2237, Ext. 3172.
NRN's annual report will be sent to NRN members this fall. To obtain a copy of the report or to request information on joining the NRN, call Tom Stewart, research network coordinator, at (800) 274-2237, Ext. 3172.
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