Seminar Series: Ethel Donaghue Center for Translating Research into Practice and Policy

Are you near the University of Connecticut Health Center? If so, check out this seminar series...

The Ethel Donaghue Center for Translating Research into Practice and Policy
2009 – 2010 Seminar Series

The TRIPP Center series focuses on practice-oriented translational research, seeking to improve processes of care and health outcomes by accelerating the transfer of evidence-based medical practice into the community. This year the emphasis is on translational informatics. We have invited leaders in each area to present and provide our audience with the opportunity to learn about their research.

Seminars are held Thursdays at 12 noon at the Low Learning Center at the University of Connecticut Health Center

* Except November 19th which will be simulcast from Storrs to the TRIPP Conference Room located in Dowling South.

Nov. 19, 2009

Jeremey Grimshaw, MBChB, PhD, FRCGP

Building the Science of Knowledge Translation
University of Ottowa * Co-sponsorship with CHIP at Storrs

Dec. 3, 2009

Victor Villagra, MD, FACP

Public Utility Model for Chronic Care

Health & Technology Vector, Inc.

Jan. 14, 2010

William Rollow , MD, MPH HIT

Medical Home & Perspective of Payor

Emblem Health

Feb. 4, 2010

Richard Shiffman, MD, FAAP

Decision Support In Pediatric Asthma

Yale University

Mar. 11, 2010

Mr. Mark Borton

HIT Solutions for Primary Care
Equity Health Partners, LLC

Apr. 8, 2010

Lisa Kern, MD

Pay-for-Performance, Medical Home Implementation and Health Care Quality
Weill Cornell Medical College

For more information on the seminar series, please click here.

An update from the declaration committee...

Guiding Principles and Implementation Strategies for the Funders Forum Group

A subgroup of volunteers from the Funders Forum has met to begin drafting what could become a “Proclamation” based on the ideas and perspectives that were presented by participants at the meeting this past July. Our work at this point has involved a review of the notes from our July meeting and some telephone and email discussions to develop a draft proposal of what we are referring to as principles and implementation strategies for the group to consider. These priniciples are neither formalized nor finalized and we will be presenting the draft to the entire group within the next two months.

Joining together to assert our declaration!

Thank you to those who have volunteered to serve on the committee for our "declaration" project. If you have not yet volunteered, it's not too late. Please email Heather Kelley if you are interested.

As this group begins their work, we will be sharing their products via this blog... so keep your eye on this space!

Lynne Garner on "Dealing with Scale"

A short while ago, Geoffrey Canada, President and CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, the award-winning comprehensive program of health, parenting and educational services, was on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, and he said something that caught my ear. Mr. Canada explained that before its founding he had been working in programs that served 100 or 200 children at a time. It was important work but didn’t come close to meeting the needs of the thousands of children that could benefit from those services. He said “dealing with scale is one of the issues we need to tackle in this nation.” A short while later, in discussing the inspiration for the Harlem Children’s Zone, he said it was “not some kind of a brilliant Eureka” but rather putting into place what is already known to be effective in a way that works.

These two issues – implementing what we already know to be effective and doing so on a scale to benefit many people – are two of the biggest challenges to creating benefit through research. After considering our own history of grantmaking and listening to the experience of others, it’s clear that there are at least three interrelated conditions at the source of this difficulty.

• There’s lot of money for research but precious little to implement research findings.
• It’s nobody’s “job.”
• Most research is done in academic centers, whose incentives work against developing an idea far enough along for the findings to be put into a useable “product.”

Because these conditions are larger than Donaghue can change on its own, we are looking for opportunities to work with other funders. And although we aren’t spending a lot on new grants now, we are working to shape our grantmaking programs to be more focused on these issues. Maybe this involves starting with those who have the health care problems and then looking for research-based solutions. Maybe the research team should be a partnership with those who are ultimately the end users. And maybe, like Geoffrey Canada and the Harlem Children’s Zone, we need to be willing to stick with one issue for several years in order to make real change.

But this is only my take on the topic – what’s yours?

Lynne Garner is Trustee and President of the Donaghue Foundation

An Invitation from the Donaghue Foundation

The Donaghue Foundation would like to invite you to participate in their 2nd Annual Andrews Lecture Series, with guest speaker, Karen Barrow. The event is being held on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 at The Anlyan Center, Yale School of Medicine, 300 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 4:00p.m.-5:00p.m. A reception will follow in the atrium.

To honor Ray Andrews' stewardship of the Donaghue Foundation from 1993 through 2007, the Trustees established an annual lecture series in his name that focuses on the voice of the patient. This lecture series gives expression to the patient's experience from a variety of perspectives.

Karen Barrow is the creator of "Patient Voices" for the New York Times on the web. Patient Voices features real stories from people coping with everything from attention deficit disorder to pancreatic cancer. In each installment of "Patient Voices," six to ten individuals living with a particular ailment share their experiences.

Ms. Barrow captures these very personal stories through recorded interviews and photographs that appear regularly on the The New York Times Well Blog. Karen Barrow holds a MA in biomedical journalism from New York University and a BA in biology from Cornell University. To read more information on Patient Voices click here.

This lecture is open to the public. Please call or email the Foundation at 860.521.9011 or conference@donaghue.org if you plan to attend so we can properly prepare for the reception.

An Interesting Read...

Translation of Research Into Practice: Why We Can’t "Just Do It"

Lee A. Green, MD, MPH and Colleen M. Seifert, PhD

Abstract: Translation of new knowledge into practice proceeds through 3 stages, from awareness through acceptance to adoption. Translational research focuses almost exclusively on the first 2 stages. We argue that improving the disappointing results of translation efforts will require a detailed understanding of how adoption takes place. We summarize research in cognitive science that illustrates how accepted "declarative" knowledge (acquired through lectures, reading, and discussion) differs (even down to its locus in the brain) from adopted "procedural" knowledge that is acted on in clinical practice. We suggest strategies that can capitalize on the cognitive processes by which declarative knowledge is proceduralized, as a means of making translation more effective, including (1) structured case-level feedback, automated or from human consultants, during the declarative stage; (2) practice in context early in the procedural stage; and (3) deliberative practice when procedural knowledge has been formed but is still being refined.

For the rest of the article, please click here.

The Journal of the American Board of Family Practice 18:541-545 (2005)

Funders Forum - Evaluation and Next Steps

Thank you to everyone who completed an evaluation of the July 8-9 Funders Forum. We’ve heard from 17 of you about what you liked, what needed work, and who we should be engaging in this topic. We are glad that our keynote presentations resonated with you so strongly, and we understand that deviating from our agenda wasn’t something all of you appreciated. And we were pleasantly surprised by your response to the question “should this group try to build upon the forum meeting?”

If you haven’t already completed your evaluation, it’s still available online and we’d love to know your thoughts. We will continue to update the evaluation report as more evaluations are completed.

Click here to see the full evaluation report.

If you haven’t yet filled out the survey, please click here to do so now.

Your insight will help us as we decide how to move this initiative forward. We invite all of you to join us on a conference call that will be held mid-autumn to discuss the steps we should take together. Information about the date, time, and phone number of the call will be emailed to all forum participants and posted on this blog. You may also email Heather Kelley for additional information about this call.

In the meantime, we are:

• Drafting the “declaration of independence.” This will be sent to you by the end of August for your review and comments.


• Developing ideas for a consortium effort to 1) test and push implementation strategies and 2) build upon each funder’s successes for implementation-focused grant making.

Got any ideas for us related to these activities – or other things? Please let us know by commenting on this post or emailing Heather.