Meaningful co-production with clinicians: Establishing a practice-based research network with physiotherapists in regional Australia.

Abstract

Background: The disconnect between research and clinical practice leads to research evidence that is often not useful for clinical practice. Practice-based research networks are collaborations between researchers and clinicians aimed at co-producing more useful research. Such networks are rare in the physiotherapy field. We aimed to describe i) clinician’s motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network; ii) the process of network establishment; and iii) research priorities for a practice-based network of physiotherapists in the Hunter Region of New South Wales (NSW), Australia that supports research co-production. MethodsWe describe the methods and outcomes of three steps we used to establish the network. Step one involved consultation with local opinion leaders and a formative evaluation to understand clinician’s motivations behind, and enablers to, participating in a network. Step two involved establishment activities to generate a founding membership group and co-design a governance model. Step three involved mapping clinical problems through a workshop guided by systems thinking theory with local stakeholders and prioritising research areas.ResultsThrough formative evaluation focus groups, we generated five key motivating themes and three key enablers for physiotherapists’ involvement in the network. Establishment activities led to a founding membership group (n=29, 67% from private practice clinics), a network vision and mission statement, and a joint governance group (9/13 (70%) are private practice clinicians). Our problem mapping and prioritisation process led to three clinically relevant priority research areas with the potential for significant change in practice and patient outcomes. ConclusionsClinicians are motivated to collaborate with researchers to not only improve research relevance, but to solve a wide array of issues with the delivery of care. Research that follows from this collaboration should, therefore, be maximally useful to clinical practice by addressing issues that may not be possible to address when working in silos. More work is needed to explore the proposed benefits of practice-based research networks.

Using electronic health records to evaluate the adherence to cervical cancer prevention guidelines: a cross-sectional study

“…Previously, it has been highlighted that there is a considerable amount of research that fails to improve practice as it does not address questions that are important to practitioners, it is not applicable to real-life, patient-centred or available to policy makers [17][18][19][20]. To increase the practicability of current study and to ensure that the results are disseminated and implemented into the practice, it has been conducted in close co-operation with Estonian Gynaecologists Society and several practitioners.…”