REACHnet Makes Strong Showing at Academy Health 2017 Annual Research Meeting

This year, the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting took place from June 25 to 27 in New Orleans. The research meeting convenes users and producers of health services research from around the world to improve health and healthcare. LPHI’s Health Services Research team members were among the 2,500 attendees of the annual meeting.

The Health Services Research team had six submissions to present at the conference accepted by Academy Health. Topics included the value and utilization of PCORnet (National Patient Centered Outcomes Research Network) for health services research, patient engagement training for early healthcare professionals, community partner engagement in research, the REACHnet Pragmatic Trial App Suite, and implementation of the ADAPTABLE computable phenotype.

Tom Carton, PhD, Principle Investigator of REACHnet, Rebekah Angove, PhD, REACHnet’s Engagement Director, and Tim Carey, MD, PCORnet Co-investigator, discussed the benefits of utilizing the PCORnet infrastructure to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) scholars, and hosted a special PCORnet session for conference attendees. Dr. Carton was also joined by Dr. Esteban Gershanik, Chief Information Officer of Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals to deliver a keynote address for the Health Information Technology Interest group regarding health information technology and research infrastructures in Louisiana.

Dr. Angove presented two sessions on patient engagement and building strong relationships with community stakeholders. Lindsay Hendryx, REACHnet Operations and Clinical Integration Manager, led an Innovation Station demonstrating the Pragmatic Trial App Suite (PTAS) with the support of the REACHnet Clinical Integration Manager, Peggy Sanders and Dr. Carton. Attendees were introduced to various tablet-based workflows and had the opportunity to provide feedback. Iben McCormick-Ricket, REACHnet’s Lead Data Analyst, presented a poster on lessons learned from implementing the ADAPTABLE computable phenotype.

The REACHnet engagement team utilized various social media platforms to document their experience at Academy Health, #ARM17. The event helped garner over 1,000 impressions on the @REACHnetCDRN Twitter account (interactions and/or replies from other users on twitter) and connected REACHnet to new followers interested in the work of research engagement. For more information on REACHnet’s presentations at the Academy Health Research Meeting, please click here for a summary on the PCORnet website.