Exploring how patients, carers and members of the public are recruited to advisory boards, groups and panels as partners in public and patient involved health research: a scoping review protocol

"I Am Interested!": The Voices of the Community and Their Participation in Health Advisory Boards

Introduction

Researchers can often be challenged by meaningful efforts to involve the public and communities in research. Community and health advisory boards (HABs) offer an opportunity to create a fully intentional and honest relationship between researchers and the community.

Objective

Most recently, the All Indiana (IN) for Health HAB had four openings and a call was published to our community of over 13,800 individuals in the All IN for Health newsletter. Four hundred eighty-eight individuals submitted applications to become part of the board. In what follows, we share the lessons in motivations and interests of individuals who responded.

Methods

The application process included the following questions: What lived experiences and/or personal interests have motivated you to be involved in All IN for Health? Please explain why you are interested in being an All IN for HAB member. Our analysis approach was qualitative and centered on narrative research.

Results

We organize the findings in two categories: Motivation and Interests. Individuals were motivated to participate based on family or friend diagnosis, personal diagnosis, roles as caregivers, desire to impact change and advocacy, role as health professional, and previous participation in research. Interests followed similar themes beginning with crediting their interest to a diagnosis. In addition, we categorized desire to share their experience, personal positionality, and previous research experience, and contributing to the education of student/trainee.

Conclusion

By understanding motivations, we understand needs. This information can be used for other advisory boards, as well as recruitment into research participation and health care advocacy.

Development of telemedicine in the Czech Republic from patients' and other key stakeholders' perspective

Telemedicine is a way to improve healthcare outcomes with greater efficiency for both patients and care providers. The great potential of digital technologies also lies in strengthening the patient-centered approach. The early successes and benefits of telemedicine in the Czech Republic, amplified by the COVID-19, have contributed to the fact that wider implementation of telemedicine is already generally supported at the expert and public levels. Our research focuses on the identification of key issues in the implementation of telemedicine and the challenges of telemedicine in the future, from the perspective of patients and other stakeholders. The study is based on a qualitative research approach, combining focus groups with key stakeholders, patient panels and expert panels (2021-2022). The lack of rules and uncoordinated development of various activities proved to be the main barriers to the integration of telemedicine in the health system. This regulatory uncertainty can generate a number of problems in the patient-doctor relationship in practice, including ethical ones, and can also lead to inequalities in access to healthcare and affect the overall quality of care provided. Furthermore, it has been shown that patients' interests in the implementation of telemedicine are: 1. a predictable and reliable framework that guarantees them certainty and security in the provision of telemedicine services, 2. telemedicine solutions that increase the availability and efficiency of the care provided while bringing comfort, and 3. user-friendly and simple solutions. At the same time, patients want to understand the new environment and be active participants in the process of digital innovation, including the practical implementation of telemedicine. The research team has developed recommendations for further developments in the implementation of telemedicine that reflect the patient's interest and can be implemented at three levels - the health system, institutional, and community level. In countries with a well-developed and institutionalized patient movement, the community level can be represented by patient organizations, thus becoming the link between telemedicine policy making and implementation at the individual level of healthcare provision. For the further development of telemedicine, the development of a national strategy involving all key stakeholders, including patients, in the implementation has proven essential.

Recruitment of patients, carers and members of the public to advisory boards, groups and panels in public and patient involved health research: a scoping review

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this scoping review are to: (1) identify the distribution of and context of the recruitment strategies used, (2) explore the facilitators, benefits, barriers and ethical issues of the identified recruitment strategies, (3) distinguish the varying terminology for involvement (ie, panels, boards, individual) and (4) determine if the individual recruitment strategies used were to address issues of representation or bias.

DESIGN

A scoping review.

SETTING

This scoping review follows the framework by Peters et al. Seven electronic databases were explored including Scopus, Medline, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, Cochrane Library and PsycINFO (conducted July 2021). The search strategy was codeveloped among the research team, PPI research experts and a faculty librarian. Two independent reviewers screened articles by title and abstract and then at full text based on predetermined criteria.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

Explore recruitment strategies used, facilitators, benefits, barriers and ethical issues of the identified recruitment strategies. Identify terminology for involvement. Explore recruitment strategies used to address issues of representation or bias.

RESULTS

The final sample was from 51 sources. A large portion of the extracted empirical literature had a clinical focus (37%, n=13) but was not a randomised control trial. The most common recruitment strategies used were human networks (78%, n=40), such as word of mouth, foundation affiliation, existing networks, clinics or personal contacts. Within the reviewed literature, there was a lack of discussion pertaining to facilitators, benefits, barriers and ethical considerations of recruitment strategies was apparent. Finally, 41% (n=21) of studies employed or proposed recruitment strategies or considerations to address issues of representation or bias.

CONCLUSION

We conclude with four key recommendations that researchers can use to better understand appropriate routes to meaningfully involve patients, carers and members of the public to cocreate the evidence informing their care.

Nurse champions as street-level bureaucrats: Factors which facilitate innovation, policy making, and reconstruction

Background

Nurse champions are front-line practitioners who implement innovation and reconstruct policy.

Purpose

To understand through a network theory lens the factors that facilitate nurse champions’ engagement with radical projects, representing their actions as street-level bureaucrats (SLBs).

Materials and methods

A personal-network survey was employed. Ninety-one nurse champions from three tertiary medical centers in Israel participated.

Findings

Given high network density, high levels of advice play a bigger role in achieving high radicalness compared with lower levels advice. High network density is also related to higher radicalness when networks have high role diversity.

Discussion

Using an SLB framework, the findings suggest that nurse champions best promote adoption of innovation and offer radical changes in their organizations through professional advice given by colleagues in their field network. Healthcare organizations should establish the structure and promote the development of dense and heterogeneous professional networks to realize organizations’ goals and nurses’ responsibility to their professional employees, patients, and society.