ADFM and NAPCRG approved the recommendations of a Joint ADFM-NAPCRG Task Force in November 2015. That Task Force recommended creation of a steering committee to implement a bi-national research capacity building initiative for Departments of Family Medicine (DFM) in the US and Canada.1 The Building Research Capacity (BRC) Steering Committee (SC), the members of which are the authors of this commentary, will formally launch BRC at the 2016 NAPCRG Annual Meeting.
Building on the Foundation: BRC
Many departments and residency programs already enjoy cultures of inquiry, pursue meaningful scholarship, and/or generate impactful original research. A few have research cathedrals that dominate their landscapes. Most, however, are either in the beginning stages, are challenged to reach a stage of sustainability, or find their current infrastructure at risk due to crumbling support. The foundational elements needed for robust, sustainable, and transformational research and scholarship in all DFMs are currently only partially in place. BRC imagines a complete and solid foundation, as well as enduring infrastructures, of primary care research across the continent.
BRC Work Groups: The Implementation Teams
The tasks of current BRC Work Groups (WG) composed of multiple leading faculties from the US and Canada, each led by 1 or more BRC SC member(s), is briefly described below. Each WG and BRC will pursue staged implementation of programs; will evolve organically; will be guided by both formative and summative evaluation; and collectively will endeavor to build a self-sustaining and unshakable foundation for research and scholarship.
Brief Consultation Service (BCS) WG
An inter-department/inter-institutional BCS will be developed whereby experienced research leaders provide brief consultations on research and scholarship capacity building. This effort will formalize ad hoc consultations that members of the ADFM Research Committee have been offering for several years in conjunction with national meetings.
Curriculum WG
The following core curricular topics have been identified to date as a focus for more development of online training and in-person sessions at national meetings of family medicine organizations through BRC:
Building cultures of inquiry in departments and residency programs
Approaches to value-added collaborative, transdisciplinary research
Research leadership development
Faculty development, support, and skill development in research
Building and maintaining research teams
Financing and staffing research infrastructure
Developing and leveraging family medicine research laboratories
Extended Consultation Service (ECS) WG
The ECS is an initial, 2-year consultation provided by senior research leaders for 2 groups (yet to be selected) of department and institutional leaders seeking to develop, invest in, and implement bold capacity building strategies. The focus will be on developing small cadres of principal investigators into larger, self-sustaining research enterprises within and/or among departments and/or institutions.
Assessment and Evaluation WG
Measurable outcomes will be defined and collected along with rich qualitative and contextual information at specified intervals for formative feedback, and for short-term and long-term programmatic impact, using a realist evaluation framework. We will place a particular emphasis on long term impact of the ECS, as the ultimate impact of this effort may materialize within the 2-year consultation, but more likely will require several years and even a decade to fully realize.
Engagement WG
Formal engagement with organizations beyond NAPCRG and ADFM includes, to date, the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC), and most recently, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM). Each has sponsored representatives on the BRC Steering Committee. We expect these and future partners to bring critical leadership, constituencies who may benefit from this initiative, programmatic reach for BRC offerings, and in-kind resources such as Annual Meetings, journals and mechanisms for communication, education, training and consultation.
ADFM, FMAHealth, and CERA have recently fielded a survey to establish baseline measures of research capacity and productivity in US and Canadian DFMs and to establish trends over time. BRC will use this survey as 1 source among many to inform BRC program development and evaluation.
More will be necessary to complete this work. Much more. The BRC Engagement Work Group seeks and welcomes partners and supporters who share our vision of building a solid foundation on which family medicine and primary care research in the US and Canada can thrive and transform care in North America.
- © 2016 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.
