Clinical Research Oriented Workshop (CROW) Meeting: December 8, 2011

Present: Kairn Kelley, Amanda Kennedy, Connie van Eeghen

1. Start Up: Plan for spring semester: Ben, Amanda, Charlie, Rodger and Kairn are good with the current schedule on Thursday afternoons. Abby gets out of class on Thursdays at 12:45. We agreed to reschedule CROW meetings for spring semester starting January 5, 2012 from 1:00 – 2:30.

2. Connie: Presented her data from “Office Systems Analysis Case Study 2,” which focused on a quality improvement (QI) project conducted by an academic medical center’s primary care office practice in Burlington, VT. The project’s focus: integrate a new position for a behavioral health clinician into the primary care process, team, and systems. This project was conducted by using a QI process called “A3” to complete the team’s work, which took place from August 2010 to November 2010, followed by three months of implementation. Data were collected from the EHR system, staff surveys, and interviews. Connie’s question: which of two directions should she go to produce an article on this work?

a. Option 1: “An Effective Change Process,” which provides a tutorial of the A3 method in the context of a hypothetical project to integrate behavioral health into a primary care practice. The advantage of this choice is that it leads to a further publication on the application of the method.

b. Option 2: “A Case Study on an Effective Change Process,” which provides the data presented above as the outcomes of an implementation using the A3 method. The advantage of this choice is that it is likely to be seen as more practical and compelling.

The intended audience for this article are primary care and behavioral health clinicians. The group provided helpful feedback:

a. One good article that gets published is more valuable than several that never quite get written or accepted.

b. Case studies are compelling; multiple case studies even more so

c. Whichever chosen, research the publication, write the abstract, and email the editor. Publications to consider:

a. Journal of General Internal Medicine

b. Archives of Internal Medicine

c. Other publications related to Family Medicine

Connie will develop an outline based on a case study of her work with Rodger and circulate it for comments. Thank you to all!

3. Next Workshop Meeting(s): Thursday, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m., at Given Courtyard Level 4

a. Dec 15: Kairn: Review of normative values of a SCAN-3 auditory processing test, including how they were determined and what they mean. (No Ben)

b. Dec 22: Rodger (no Amanda, Kairn)

c. Dec 29: UVM closed

d. Jan 5: Kairn – update; start new meeting time from 1:00 – 2:30 on Thursdays

e. Future agenda to consider:

i. Ben: budgeting exercise for grant applications

ii. Rodger: Mixed methods article; article on Behavior’s Influence on Medical Conditions (unpublished); drug company funding

iii. Amanda: presentation and interpretation of data in articles

iv. 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)