A National Survey of Primary Care Practice-Based Research Networks

I agree completely with Dr. Thomas' assertion that PBRNs should be performing a broad spectrum of research projects with multiple methods and multidisciplinary investigators. The examples we gave were limited to a small number of currently active projects, but the AHRQ PBRN Resource Center [1] has compiled a list of more than 500 articles published by U.S. primary care PBRNS that focus broadly on health, health care, health care delivery, outcomes, etc. A specific example of the research Dr. Thomas calls for is the recently completed Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Prescription for Health Initiative [2] which was a series of multimethod interventions aimed at improving the healthy behaviors of primary care patients. My own PBRN [3,4] has published more than 300 articles in peer- reviewed journals that employ a wide palette of multidisciplinary investigators, methods, foci, and outcomes. However, as Dr. Thomas states and our article documents, most PBRNs in the U.S. are young and just now discovering their strengths, mission, interests, and research directions.

NIH's promulgation of Clinical and Translational Sciences Institutes [5] across U.S. academic medical centers will enhance and speed the development - and hopefully use - of PBRNs to facilitate more research relevant to primary care practices (and the communities they serve) while moving research more generally out of academic medical centers and into the communities. We hope that Dr. Thomas' vision is realized by this next generation of PBRNs so they leverage the NIH support to go beyond just moving the same old clinical research into the community but transform research to better serve the needs of those communities.

1. PBRN Resource Center. Available at: http://www.pbrnrc.iupui.edu/. Accessed June 23, 2007.

2. Prescription for Health. Available at: http://www.prescriptionforhealth.org. Accessed June 23, 2007.

3. Tierney WM, Miller ME, Hui SL, McDonald CJ. Practice randomization and clinical research: The Indiana experience. Med Care 1991; 29:JS57 JS64.

4. Kho AN, Zafar A, Tierney WM. Electronic data collection in practice-based research networks: Lessons learned from a successful implementation. J Am Board Fam Med 2007; 20:196-203.

5. Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards. Available at: http://www.ncrr.nih.gov/clinical_research_resources/clinical_and_translational_science_awards/. Accessed June 23, 2007.

Competing interests:   None declared