Community Engagement Core

The Community Engagement Core focuses on enhancing relationships and communication between researchers and clinicians, policymakers, and communities; developing a primary health care extension system through which innovations can be more effectively disseminated and implemented; strengthening practice and community-based research; encouraging the translation of potentially impactful discoveries into practical innovations; and helping other IDeA states develop similar programs and approaches.

A set of principles or “Rules of Engagement” are being developed that, once agreed upon by all partners and stakeholder groups, will help to ensure that relationships between the academic and practice communities serve the needs and meet the expectations of both groups. Partnerships with the Oklahoma State Department of Health, local Turning Point and Sooner Success coalitions, the Public Health Institute of Oklahoma, the regional Area Health Education Centers, and the Oklahoma City Area Inter-Tribal Health Board will help develop and sustain a primary health care extension system within which innovations and resources can more efficiently reach those who can benefit from them.

Adding a Network Coordinator will strengthen the Oklahoma Physicians Resource/Research Network and the Oklahoma Child Health Network. Additionally, a new pharmacy research network will be established.

The Clinical Inquiries Program developed in the OUHSC Department of Family and Preventive Medicine will be expanded to include other departments and partner institutions. This “ClinIQ” program makes it possible for those who deliver health care to submit questions to the academic centers, which will provide evidence-based answers based upon a careful review of published research. 

The Community Engagement Core will also establish a Translational Think Tanks (T3) Program that brings together teams of researchers and, when appropriate, clinicians, policymakers, and community members to take promising discoveries and attempt to translate them into practical clinical innovations.