The purpose of the New England Clinicians Forum's (NECF) one-year Category I infrastructure-enhancing application is to expand the current capacity of the NECF to implement practice-based research in the community-based centers that comprise the NECF membership. The NECF was established in 1999 to support interdisciplinary health care team members in the delivery of accessible, high quality, community based health care to all populations with special emphasis on the underserved. Long term aims of the NECF PBRN are to develop the capacity to conduct and link research to community care sites; to create a body of literature around community health care sites relevant to the care they provide and the patients they serve; to share and develop tools, methods, practices, resources and identify benchmarks and guidelines; and to identify and work with partners who share a similar vision. Seventy-one clinicians at nine community based health care centers serving nearly 149,000 underserved patients throughout New England have joined together to pursue these aims. Three-year objectives of the NECF PBRN are to recruit a minimum of 15 organizations to participate by October 1, 2004, with at least 2 organizations from each of the 6 states in New England; recruit and retain a minimum of 100 clinicians to participate by October 1, 2004; and to apply successfully for one new research application each year beginning October 1, 2003. The NECF PBRN will focus on three key components of infrastructure development: 1) establish policies and procedures for soliciting clinical improvement or research questions from network members, refining further those questions that can be addressed by the network and using the questions to develop research applications; 2) develop the information technology to be shared by the network for collecting and aggregating research data from practices, disseminating information to practices and assessing subsequent changes in practice; and 3) define the processes that will be used to optimize the level of study participation within the network and to increase the likelihood that findings will be implemented by PBRN membership. The NECF PBRN will implement a strategy of policy and procedure development, strategic planning meetings and conference calls, member surveys and the design of a Share Point Team Services site to enable the members to collaborate on planning and future research projects from geographically disperse locations.
