Primary Care - Building Research Integration in Different Geographic Environments (PC-BRIDGE)

ABSTRACT Primary care, particularly family medicine, is essential in New Mexico (NM), a state with serious challenges alongside unique strengths. A quarter (25.5%) of its population lives in formally designated rural/frontier counties. Additionally, 32/33 NM Counties are designated as Health Professions Shortage Areas, resulting in significant competing demands for its clinical workforce. The proposed network research hub, Primary Care-Building Research Integration in Different Geographic Environments (PCBRIDGE), will leverage the substantial primary care practice- and community-engaged research infrastructure at the University of New Mexico to extend research participation opportunities to NM communities often unable to participate in clinical research through the following specific aims: 1) Engage rural primary care settings serving rural populations to enhance and expand research capacity; 2) Engage NM communities through trust-building strategies and clinical research adaptations that identify, employ, and disseminate best practices in research; 3) Inform research and clinical alignment through discovery and/or adoption of innovative yet feasible strategies that cause minimal disruption to clinical workflows while achieving progress toward a learning health systems framework that accelerates the adoption of evidence into clinical practice; and 4) Participate actively in a national community of practice through work group participation, quality assurance processes, collaborative relationship building with network hub partners and evaluation and dissemination of best practices in primary care research.