Table 3 Developing a research agenda using the six “E” steps
From: Developing a primary care research agenda through collaborative efforts – a proposed “6E” model
Stage | Process | Illustration | Stakeholders |
|---|---|---|---|
Pre-workshop | Entreat | Local FM leaders form steering group actively seeks official sponsorship from the local Ministry of Health and concerted support from local primary care physicians from the College of General Practitioners and academic staff from FM department in local university. Steering group also entreats external primary care organization such as WONCA to identify regional expertise and sponsor external facilitators to operate the workshop. | College of GP, MOH, Academic institution, WONCA experts |
Enlist | The steering group identifies and puts up a list of primary care physicians from both public and private health sectors with research inclination to be potential participants in a primary care research workshop. | Primary care researcher | |
Engage | The steering group members engage academic staff and established researchers from academic institutions to co-facilitate the research workshop and to provide input on local resources and expertise to support research. The external facilitators also engage and partner the local researchers and resource personnel (to identify funding sources and to direct to relevant approval agencies such as ethical committee for research) to define specific roles at the workshop and streamlines the program at a pre-workshop briefing. This is to ensure that the program is contextualized to the local healthcare and academic system. | Academic institution, MOH, WONCA experts | |
At workshop | Educe | External facilitators educe the participants to identify key local healthcare issues and form research questions and develop respective research proposals. Participants are encouraged to form research teams to further develop their respective proposals. | WONCA experts, primary care researcher |
Empower | External facilitators train the participants to apply appropriate research design to answer their research questions in their proposal. Local facilitators introduce and highlight local resources and expertise to participants who can potentially assist and support the latter when they proceed with their research project. Participants present and share their proposals to each other for clarifications and mutual understanding. | WONCA experts, MOH, primary care researchers | |
Encapsulate | External facilitators collate the research proposals, organize them into a research agenda and to seek advice from the local FM steering group regarding feasibility. This is followed by classification into broad research domains and identification of key drivers to lead specific areas of research. Lastly, the external facilitators and the workshop participants agreed on the next steps and ways to operationalize the research proposals. | WONCA experts, primary care researchers |