Fertility after treatment is a major concern for young women with breast cancer. There is a need to communicate with and educate young patients regarding fertility issues at diagnosis and a need for future research directed at preserving fertility for young breast cancer survivors.

Despite the growing demand for research that engages stakeholders, there is limited evidence in the literature to demonstrate its value -or return on investment. This gap indicates a general lack of evaluation of engagement activities. To adequately inform engagement activities, we need to further investigate the dividends of engaged research, and how to evaluate these effects. This paper synthesizes the literature on hypothesized impacts of engagement, shares what has been evaluated and identifies steps needed to reduce the gap between engagement's promises and the underlying evidence supporting its practice. This assessment provides explicit guidance for better alignment of engagement's promised benefits with evaluation efforts and identifies specific areas for development of evaluative measures and better reporting processes. Keywords: comparative effectiveness research • evaluation • patient engagement • patient-centered outcomes research • PCOR • review • stakeholder engagement BackgroundEngagement of patients and other healthcare stakeholders (herein, stakeholder partners) is increasingly recognized as essential to patient-centered comparative effectiveness research (CER), which is intended to answer questions of importance to patients and their caregivers [1]. Often described as researchers doing research with patients, rather than for, at or to them [2][3][4], patient-engaged research implies a level of involvement that extends beyond the role of research subject [5]. This shift has been fueled in part by the 2010 creation of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) by Congress with the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. PCORI is committed to producing and promoting high-integrity CER that is 'guided by patients, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community.' [6].The PCORI Methodology Report states that patient engagement can include: defining topics and formulating study questions, identifying a study population and choosing interventions, comparators and outcomes, developing optimal strategies for recruitment and retention of study participants, conducting a study and analyzing results and disseminating research findings into clinical practice [7]. Generally, the value of engaging stakeholder partners in research is that it can help reorient and improve the research enterprise, reduce clinical uncertainty and speed adoption of meaningful findings that hold great promise with the ultimate goal of improving patients' care experience, decision-making and health outcomes [6].Despite the growing interest in and demand for research that engages stakeholder partners -or, 'research done differently,' [8] there is limited evidence in the published literature to demonstrate the value -or return on investment -of this engagement. This evidence gap is reflective of a general lack of evaluation of research engagement activities. In fact, the majority of published research with a stakeholder partner engagement dimension does not include an evaluation component [9][10][11]...

BACKGROUNDPatients and healthcare stakeholders are increasingly becoming engaged in the planning and conduct of biomedical research. However, limited research characterizes this process or its impact.OBJECTIVEWe aimed to characterize patient and stakeholder engagement in the 50 Pilot Projects funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), and identify early contributions and lessons learned.DESIGNA self-report instrument was completed by researchers between 6 and 12 months following project initiation.PARTICIPANTSForty-seven principal investigators or their designees (94 % response rate) participated in the study.MAIN MEASURES Self-report of types of stakeholders engaged, stages and levels of engagement, facilitators and barriers to engagement, lessons learned, and contributions from engagement were measured.KEY RESULTSMost (83 %) reported engaging more than one stakeholder in their project. Among those, the most commonly reported groups were patients (90 %), clinicians (87 %), health system representatives (44 %), caregivers (41 %), and advocacy organizations (41 %). Stakeholders were commonly involved in topic solicitation, question development, study design, and data collection. Many projects engaged stakeholders in data analysis, results interpretation, and dissemination. Commonly reported contributions included changes to project methods, outcomes or goals; improvement of measurement tools; and interpretation of qualitative data. Investigators often identified communication and shared leadership strategies as “critically important” facilitators (53 and 44 % respectively); lack of stakeholder time was the most commonly reported challenge (46 %). Most challenges were only partially resolved. Early lessons learned included the importance of continuous and genuine partnerships, strategic selection of stakeholders, and accommodation of stakeholders’ practical needs.CONCLUSIONSPCORI Pilot Projects investigators report engaging a variety of stakeholders across many stages of research, with specific changes to their research attributed to engagement. This study identifies early lessons and barriers that should be addressed to facilitate engagement. While this research suggests potential impact of stakeholder engagement, systematic characterization and evaluation of engagement at multiple stages of research is needed to build the evidence base.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11606-015-3450-z) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Mobile health (mHealth) is gaining widespread attention for its potential to engage patients in their health and health care in their daily lives. Emerging evidence suggests that mHealth interventions can be used effectively to support behavior change, but numerous challenges remain when implementing these programs at the community level. This paper provides an overview of considerations when implementing community-based mHealth initiatives, based on the experiences of three Beacon Communities across the United States that have launched text messaging (short message service, SMS) pilot programs aimed at diabetes risk reduction and disease management. The paper addresses lessons learned and suggests strategies to overcome challenges related to developing text message content, conducting marketing and outreach, enrolling participants, engaging providers, evaluating program effectiveness, and sustaining and scaling the programs.

Purpose:Unprecedented efforts are underway across the United States to electronically capture and exchange health information to improve health care and population health, and reduce costs. This increased collection and sharing of electronic patient data raises several governance issues, including privacy, security, liability, and market competition. Those engaged in such efforts have had to develop data sharing agreements (DSAs) among entities involved in information exchange, many of whom are “nontraditional” health care entities and/or new partners. This paper shares lessons learned based on the experiences of six federally funded communities participating in the Beacon Community Cooperative Agreement Program, and offers guidance for navigating data governance issues and developing DSAs to facilitate community-wide health information exchange.Innovation:While all entities involved in electronic data sharing must address governance issues and create DSAs accordingly, until recently little formal guidance existed for doing so – particularly for community-based initiatives. Despite this lack of guidance, together the Beacon Communities’ experiences highlight promising strategies for navigating complex governance issues, which may be useful to other entities or communities initiating information exchange efforts to support delivery system transformation.Credibility:For the past three years, AcademyHealth has provided technical assistance to most of the 17 Beacon Communities, 6 of whom contributed to this collaborative writing effort. Though these communities varied widely in terms of their demographics, resources, and Beacon-driven priorities, common themes emerged as they described their approaches to data governance and DSA development.Conclusions:The 6 Beacon Communities confirmed that DSAs are necessary to satisfy legal and market-based concerns, and they identified several specific issues, many of which have been noted by others involved in network data sharing initiatives. More importantly, these communities identified several promising approaches to timely and effective DSA development, including: stakeholder engagement; identification and effective communication of value; adoption of a parsimonious approach; attention to market-based concerns; flexibility in adapting and expanding existing agreements and partnerships; and anticipation of required time and investment.

As health care providers adopt and make “meaningful use” of health information technology (health IT), communities and delivery systems must set up the infrastructure to facilitate health information exchange (HIE) between providers and numerous other stakeholders who have a role in supporting health and care. By facilitating better communication and coordination between providers, HIE has the potential to improve clinical decision-making and continuity of care, while reducing unnecessary use of services. When implemented as part of a broader strategy for health care delivery system and payment reform, HIE capability also can enable the use of analytic tools needed for population health management, patient engagement in care, and continuous learning and improvement. The diverse experiences of seven communities that participated in the three-year federal Beacon Community Program offer practical insight into factors influencing the technical architecture of exchange infrastructure and its role in supporting improved care, reduced cost, and a healthier population. The case studies also document challenges faced by the communities, such as significant time and resources required to harmonize variations in the interpretation of data standards. Findings indicate that their progress developing community-based HIE strategies, while driven by local needs and objectives, is also influenced by broader legal, policy, and market conditions.

In partnership with the projects, the EDM Forum is focused on identifying and sharing lessons learned to advance the national dialogue on the use of electronic clinical data to conduct CER and PCOR. These efforts have the shared goal of addressing challenges in traditional research studies and data sources, and aim to build infrastructure and generate evidence to support a learning health care system that can improve patient outcomes.

The utility values generated were internally consistent and externally valid for a hypothetical cohort of 10,000 RA patients. Microwave thermotherapy was preferred by the NRA group, while medical therapy was preferred by the RA group. Surgery was least preferred by both groups. Microwave thermotherapy had a small incremental cost but improved QoL in comparison with medical therapy. Microwave thermotherapy had a higher utility and lower cost than TURP and thus was dominant over TURP. This analytical method can be applied to evaluate the cost effectiveness of any BPH therapy.