Research & Development

In 2003 the OCPD established a research and development unit, making it one of a handful of CME units in the country to have a formal research program. The R&D Unit is building a foundation for a new generation of educational and organizational interventions to facilitate the translation of research findings into clinical practice. The central problem motivating the R&D Unit’s research is the persistent gulf between evidence-based practices and actual practice, particularly in the primary care setting. The question is "How to develop interventions that have more of an impact?" The long-term goal is to provide researchers, program planners, and practitioners with better theoretical and methodological tools for developing effective interventions to facilitate change across the full range of clinical practice. More specifically, the R&D Unit’s goals are to:

• Develop feasible and effective methodologies for diagnosing clinical performance gaps in the primary care setting
• Contribute to our understanding of the factors that hinder or support the implementation of evidence-based practices
• Develop and refine evidence-based principles, models and methodologies for intervention planning, implementation and evaluation

The R&D Unit also seeks to attract and train the next generation of leaders, researchers, and practitioners in the field by teaching graduate-level courses in the School of Education, recruiting graduate students to serve as research assistants and conduct their own CME research, and sponsoring post-doctoral research fellows interested a career in CME.