The University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita will collaborate with the Great Plains Health Alliance and affiliated clinics, the Kansas Academy of Family Physicians, and the Kansas chapter of the American College of Physicians to develop the Kansas Rural Practice Research Network (KRPRN). KRPRN is a new network that includes 26 physicians in 14 rural primary care practices. All practices, except one, are located in medically underserved communities of less than 3000 population. The project vision is to improve the quality of care to rural medically underserved populations in Kansas through an evidence-based approach to health care. The mission is to develop a practice-based research network to investigate critical and clinically-relevant issues related to the practice of primary care in small rural communities. Two goals and eight objectives are proposed: Goal. Obtain clinically relevant data pertinent to rural primary care practices. Objective l. Develop a research organization within the network that facilitates questions of interest to most physicians and that arise from their daily work. Objective 2. Facilitate effective communication with and between network participants. Objective 3. Link methodologically-skilled researchers familiar with primary care to clinically-skilled rural practitioners. Objective 4. Utilize patient populations in medically underserved rural communities to answer clinically relevant questions. Goal. Develop an effective mechanism to translate relevant research into practice. Objective 1. Assist clinicians to practice evidence-based medicine. Objective 2. Enhance existing practice- and hospital-based electronic communications systems to facilitate quality assurance/utilization review data collection. Objective 3. Use electronic information systems to assess clinical practices regarding diagnosis, prevention, treatment, and referral practices. Objective 4. Test clinical hypotheses within the network based upon the best available data-supported evidence.
