The goal of our planning effort is to further develop and test the Dartmouth COOP's interaction technology to benefit inter- organizational collaboration, information transfer, clinical improvement efforts, and practice-based research in Northern New England. Objective 1: Expand inter-organizational collaboration by identifying planning areas in which interaction technologies offer promising solutions. Community Advisors from 10 -15 regional governmental, research, and community health organizations will attend a one-day meeting in the Fall of 2000. Patient representatives will be invited to attend as well. For purposes of planning, they will focus on three age groups (the Medicare eligible elderly, the adult population aged 19-64 and children), four common conditions (pain, diabetes, """"""""near terminal,"""""""" and children with chronic health conditions), and four themes (wealth/insurance disparity, the productive patient- provider communication, practice variation, and collaborative information development). They will invent information solutions to current and anticipated problems in these planning areas. They will use explicit criteria to pick four of the most promising solutions that i) envelop required planning activities requested by AHRQ, and ii) take advantage of COOP interaction technology or other replicable methods for information transfer. Objective 2: Pilot test these four solutions to examine their applicability to population/patient information needed by these organizations. Work groups will develop and pilot test these proposed solutions during a six month period. Some of these tests will be done in minority, underserved, and special need populations. Objective 3: Expand collaborative research and funding options for the participant organizations and the Dartmouth COOP. At a second planning meeting, the Dartmouth COOP and the Community Advisors will produce action plans for the AHRQ required planning activities including: i) Specific plans to use web-based, interaction technology (or other replicable information transfer methods) to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of collaboration; ii) Important research/collaboration topics well suited to this new technology; iii) Results of pilot tests demonstrating feasibility of technology to some of these topics in relevant populations including minorities and those who are disadvantaged; iv) Methods to leverage existing resources or identify other resources that will help grow the collaborations and/or support the participant organizations; and v) Explicit plans for additional collaborations among advisor organizations and extended collaboration with other PBRNs (through the AHRQ sponsored meetings). We believe that new technologies offer the Dartmouth COOP Project and other practice-based research networks the opportunity to accelerate practice-based research and care improvement. We are also convinced that this new technology can facilitate coordination and research with other organizations concerned about the health and medical care of the Northern New England population. In these ways, research will be better and the primary care practice perspective moved beyond the office door.
