A partnered research initiative to accelerate implementation of comprehensive care for women veterans: the VA women's health CREATE.

POTENTIAL AND PROMISE OF PARTNERED RESEARCH Translation of research evidence into routine practice continues to take decades, undermining the potential promise of new evidence-based treatments and care models for improving population health. Yet research traditions often reward “ivory towers” of academic research excellence in the absence of demonstrated impacts on health and health care beyond those achieved in pristine, controlled settings, unlike those where most Americans receive their health care. As a result, our research enterprises frequently yield research evidence of uncertain applicability to routine care, making knowledge transfer and implementation difficult at best for successful translation of published research into evidence-based policy or practice improvement. Partnered research has been proposed as a promising alternative to the status quo, with the potential to produce more directly actionable findings more quickly in more diverse contexts amenable to implementation and adaptation. In a partnered research paradigm, researchers engage nonresearch partners in the definition of the research questions, approaches to study design and methods, and interpretation and application of study results. Depending on the targets of the research intervention, partners may include patients, their families, providers, practices, managers, and/or policymakers in local, regional, and/or national contexts. Although such multilevel engagement is considered a novel approach by some, involving people in decision making has long been found to increase their willingness to implement those decisions. There is no foundation for thinking that decision making around the many actions required for adoption, implementation, and spread of research evidence would be tangibly different. As a result, lack of embedded partnerships likely undermines meaningful research impacts on the health and health care of the population.