Purpose: The Harold Amos Medical Faculty Development Program (AMFDP), a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, seeks to support academic physicians from historically disadvantaged backgrounds and serves as a model program for promoting faculty diversity and health equity. Our objective was to determine differences in scientific productivity, promotions and retentions, and leadership attainment among faculty applicants to this national minority faculty development program.Methods: Final-round interview applicants from 2003 to 2008 were selected. Differences in publications, grants, promotions/retentions, and leadership positions through 2013 were compared between funded scholars and unfunded nonscholars. Semistructured interviews were conducted to identify factors that facilitated and hindered academic success.Results: A total of 124 applicants (76 scholars and 48 nonscholars) who participated in final-round interviews from 2003 to 2008 were eligible. Scholars and nonscholars had similar number of publications. Scholars had greater number of grants and grant dollars, but differences were not significant after accounting for AMFDP program awards. Scholars were more likely to hold leadership positions (28% vs. 10%, p=0.02), but equally likely to be promoted (67% vs. 58%, p=0.32) and retained (84% vs. 75%, p=0.21). In interviews, all participants endorsed mentoring, funding, and nonscientific education to academic success, but scholars reported greater availability of leadership opportunities consequent to AMFDP.Conclusion: There were few differences in academic productivity attributable to a national faculty diversity program. However, program participants were more likely to endorse and attain leadership positions. Academic institutions should consider facilitating leadership development of minority faculty as a means of advancing health equity research and training.

Objective To use the experience from a health services research evaluation to provide guidance in team development for mixed methods research. Methods The Research Initiative Valuing Eldercare (THRIVE) team was organized by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to evaluate The Green House nursing home culture change program. This paper describes the development of the research team and provides insights into how funders might engage with mixed methods research teams to maximize the value of the team. Results Like many mixed methods collaborations, the THRIVE team consisted of researchers from diverse disciplines, embracing diverse methodologies, and operating under a framework of non-hierarchical, shared leadership that required new collaborations, engagement, and commitment in the context of finite resources. Strategies to overcome these potential obstacles and achieve success included implementation of a Coordinating Center, dedicated time for planning and collaborating across researchers and methodologies, funded support for in-person meetings, and creative optimization of resources. Conclusions Challenges are inevitably present in the formation and operation of effective mixed methods research teams. However, funders and research teams can implement strategies to promote success.

Many primary care practices are changing the roles played by the members of their health care teams. The purpose of this article is to describe some of these new roles, using the authors' preliminary observations from 25 site visits to high-performing primary care practices across the United States in 2012-2013. These sites visits, to practices using their workforce creatively, were part of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded initiative, The Primary Care Team: Learning From Effective Ambulatory Practices.Examples of these new roles that the authors observed on their site visits include medical assistants reviewing patient records before visits to identify care gaps, ordering and administering immunizations using protocols, making outreach calls to patients, leading team huddles, and coaching patients to set self-management goals. The registered nurse role has evolved from an emphasis on triage to a focus on uncomplicated acute care, chronic care management, and hospital-to-home transitions. Behavioral health providers (licensed clinical social workers, psychologists, or licensed counselors) were colocated and integrated within practices and were readily available for immediate consults and brief interventions. Physicians have shifted from lone to shared responsibility for patient panels, with other team members empowered to provide significant portions of chronic and preventive care.An innovative team-based primary care workforce is emerging. Spreading and sustaining these changes will require training both health professionals and nonprofessionals in new ways. Without clinical experiences that model this new team-based care and role models who practice it, trainees will not be prepared to practice as a team.