ADVANCE hosts many engagement opportunities for patients, caregivers, clinicians, and researchers. In 2019, ADVANCE supported the OCHIN Patient Engagement Panel (PEP), the OCHIN Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN), and kicked off a fourth season of Grand Rounds events. ADVANCE investigators and clinicians are continuing to lead innovative research and engagement strategies with PCORnet®.

The OCHIN Patient Engagement Panel (PEP) completed its 7^th year in October. This past year we moved to all remote meetings so a wider group of patients and care givers from across the US could take part. We have worked hard to make our remote meetings as engaging and interactive as possible and supported research teams in following our remote model. PEP meetings typically include a presentation from one of OCHIN’s many research teams. At the meetings, the research teams describe their study and ask key questions to guide feedback and discussion from the PEP. The PEP members bring their unique experiences as patients and caregivers to the meeting and discussions, which helps research teams improve their work. In 2019, the PEP met regularly with study teams to discuss opioid, asthma, social determinants of health, and HIV research projects. If you or someone you know are interested in being a PEP member, please email Fran Ritchie, ritchief@ochin.org for more information.

The OCHIN Practice Based Research Network (PBRN)is actively supporting 19 projects with clinic-based activities such as testing a new decision support tool, observing patient visits, or interviewing people. Of the 111 health centers currently using OCHIN Epic, 43 are taking part in clinic-based projects with OCHIN research. The PBRN hosts community meetings every 4 months for anyone interested in learning more or helping to give practical, clinical feedback to projects and proposals. Like the PEP, PBRN meetings provide unique perspectives to research in practice. In 2019, PBRN community meeting attendees helped interpret results for a project developing measures of patients’ medical and social complexity, advised on a project website sharing patient experiences of various health conditions, and shared resources and strategies for collecting EHR data in a member’s evaluation of their buprenorphine prescribing program. If you’re interested in the PBRN, please contact Anna Templeton, templetona@ochin.org.  

OCHIN and ADVANCE Grand Rounds is half way through its fourth season with a special joint session in January to kickoff Cervical Health Awareness Month. Dr. Erin Kobetz from University of Miami and Dr. Jennifer Potter from the Fenway Institute and Harvard University will be presenting on Cervical Cancer and HPV Screening in Special Populations Friday, 10 January 2020, 12-1pm PST. Dr. Kobetz will present a participatory research project conducted with ADVANCE partner Health Choice Network to identify and address disparities in cervical cancer screening. Dr. Potter will present a suite of studies to understand and address cervical cancer screening disparities among transmasculine people accessing care at ADVANCE partner Fenway Health. Other sessions for 2020 include:

• Latent Tuberculosis Infection (LTBI) Monitoring Program
• Alternative Payment Methodology Experiment in Oregon
• Physician Burnout in Community Health Clinics
• Prison to Community Health Clinic Buprenorphine Prescribing Program
• Back on Track: A Naturalistic Experiment Evaluating the Impact of Medicaid Treatment Reimbursement Changes on Opioid Prescribing and Patient Outcomes among Patients with Low Back Pain

To join the Grand Rounds mailing list or request and invitation to an individual session, please email William Pinnock, pinnockw@ochin.org.

ADVANCE team members have shared our evolving engagement approaches at multiple meetings over the past year and a half and been active contributors on multiple PCORnet engagement workgroups. Some highlights include:

• Poster session at the 2019 PCORI Annual Meeting, Emerging Practices for Engaging Patient and Caregiver Stakeholders in a Data-driven System for Health Equity Research: Presented by Fran Ritchie and Rebecca Block, this poster describes the way we’ve expanded the PEP and the engagement methods we’ve used to include a more diverse and dispersed group of patients and caregivers.
• Oral presentation at 2019 NAPCRG PBRN Conference, Developing Patient Engagement within a Data-driven PBRN System for Health Equity Research: This session, presented by Anna Templeton, discussed the way the PEP has grown in response to increasingly complex research projects with large engagement components. The presentation included our updated engagement framework and associated metrics.
• Poster session at 2018 NAPCRG PBRN Conference, Developing a PBRN System for Health Equity Research – the OCHIN PBRN: Also presented by Anna Templeton, this poster describes the evolution of the OCHIN PBRN from a regional to national model reliant on remote communication and engagement strategies.

We look forward providing an update on our 2020 PEP and PBRN meetings. Please join us for the remaining OCHIN and ADVANCE Grand Rounds series. You can see upcoming OCHIN and ADVANCE Grand Rounds on the ADVANCE website. Thanks to all of our patients, caregivers, clinicians and researchers on another successful year of engagement!