JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Practice-based research is essential to generating the data necessary to understand outcomes in ambulatory care. While there is increased interest in studying ambulatory care given rising patient volumes and complexity in those settings, little guidance is available on how best to recruit ambulatory practices for research.

Objective:

The purpose of this paper is to describe facilitators and barriers to recruiting ambulatory oncology practices into a large multi-site study. We also report lessons learned during the recruitment process.

Methods:

Using a mixed-method design, we sought to recruit 52 ambulatory oncology practices that participate in a state-wide quality improvement collaborative for the quantitative phase. We used four domains of the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research to describe facilitators and barriers to recruitment.

Results:

We successfully recruited 28 of the 52 collaborative-affiliated practices, collecting survey data from 2,223 patients and 299 clinicians. Intervention attributes included multi-modal outreach and training activities to assure high fidelity to the data collection protocol. The implementation process was enhanced through interactive training and practice-assigned champions responsible for data collection. External context attributes that facilitated practice recruitment included partnership with a quality improvement collaborative and inclusion of a staff member from the collaborative on our team. Key opinion leaders within each practice who could identify challenges to participation and propose flexible solutions represented internal context attributes. Lessons learned included navigating diverse approaches to human subjects protection policies and delivering incentives to practices, among others.

Conclusions:

Our experience provides other researchers with challenges to anticipate and possible solutions to common issues. Using the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research as a guide, we identified numerous recruitment barriers and facilitators, and devised strategies to enhance recruitment efforts. We conclude that researchers and clinicians can partner effectively to design and implement research protocols that ultimately benefit patients who are increasingly seeking care in ambulatory practices. Clinical Trial: N/A