Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: Aug 11, 2010

Present: Abby Crocker, Amanda Kennedy, Rodger Kessler, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Connie van Eeghen

1. Round Table: New short term plan for CROW meetings:
a. Thursdays at noon, no agenda, BYOL, FRED in Given Courtyard, starting Sept 16
b. Fridays at 11:00, with agenda, starting Sept 3
c. Ben to send out an invitation to all CTS students on CTS blog

2. Connie’s Discussion: How to set up a qualitative assessment that can be repeated for each case study in her study, allow for cross case comparison, and be focused on her dependent variables

a. Notes are limited as this was an active work group and when Connie talks she doesn’t write much. My apologies if I left something out; let me know.
b. Definitions were discussed:
i. Two independent variables are similar: Financial Resource Availability and Management Support. We agreed that the second can include the first but in this case will refer not to financial support but other forms of support (philosophy, style, personal interactions, etc.)
ii. Two dependent variables are similar: Clinical Effectiveness of QI Outcomes and Useful as related to the QI process. We eventually agreed that the term “useful” is independent of work performance and clinical outcomes; it relates to the personal perception that the process “felt good.”
c. The work group sorted the utterances taken from the interviews and surveys during the first case study. The utterances were sorted into predetermined headings that matched the dependent variables. Utterances that did not match these variables were sorted into new categories, but not labeled. The process took ~20 minutes, in part because the utterances had been sent to participants ahead of time to preview them.
d. The group discussed the fact that they were missing the context of the questions that stimulated these utterances and debated whether seeing the questions would inform or distract from assessing the utterances. We decided that, as a new exercise, Connie will prepare a Word document with the questions (grouped by dependent variable) and the utterances listed under each question that they correspond to. The work group will receive this document ahead of time and create their own themes from these utterances, sending them back to Connie to collate the themes. These themes will be the focus of the next work group meeting, to determine what themes were commonly noticed or uniquely different from each other.
e. To test this process out, Connie will take the questions and utterances related to one dependent variable in one Word document and trial the “preview” process with Amanda, Ben, and Charlie. We will sort out the themes at the Aug 25 workshop.
f. Thanks to everyone who participated; it was extremely helpful!

3. Next Fellows Meeting(s): Wednesday, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m., at Given Courtyard Level 4
a. Aug 18: Rodger: questions on study designs
b. Aug 25: Connie: qualitative assessment work group, trial #2
c. Sept 3 (NOTE: FRIDAY SCHEDULE STARTS): No topic yet
d. Future agenda to consider:
i. Rodger: Mixed methods article
ii. Future: Review of different types of journal articles (lit review, case study, original article, letter to editor…), when each is appropriate, tips on planning/writing (Abby)
iii. Future: Informed consent QI: Connie to follow up with Nancy Stalnaker, Alan Rubin will follow up with Alan Wortheimer or Rob McCauly
iv. Kairn will ask a librarian to join us for selected issues

4. Fellows document – to be reviewed in the future. We trialed Wednesday meeting times, which started May 5, 2010 and continued until August 25, 2010.

Recorder: Connie van Eeghen