In 2001, the WSU DFM started a practice-based research network in metropolitan Detroit called “MetroNet”. Practice-based research networks are consortia of primary care offices dedicated to answering questions about health and disease that can be investigated best, or only in ambulatory settings. Our purpose is to answer the questions that are important to primary care physicians and ultimately provide better care for our patients.
Over 90% of research dollars are spent in large tertiary care medical centers studying referral patients that may have little in common with our own. The failure to implement research in daily practice has raised questions about knowledge transfer, especially when subspecialty research findings are assumed to apply to primary care, which provides over 90% of the office visits in this country. Practice-based research networks have the potential to answer the questions that are important to primary care physicians and their patients.
Individual physicians within a practice or entire practices are welcome to participate. The level of individual physician participation will range from recruiting patients to proposing study ideas to directing a study. The WSU DFMPHS is committed to developing a network and employs several research assistants and seasoned research faculty to assist practitioners in identifying and answering the questions that are important to improving the primary care of patients in this geographical area.
Participation in MetroNet benefits individual physicians by providing intellectual stimulation and an opportunity to answer those clinical questions for which they have never found an answer or that have never been the subject of a research study. MetroNet provides a forum for discussion of network research ideas and methods at regularly planned meetings. Participation may also lead to a volunteer clinical faculty appointment at WSU.
Kendra Schwartz, MD, MSPH - MetroNet Director
P. (313) 577-0880 or
P. (313) 577-4160
kensch@med.wayne.edu
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