Recent ExpertLens Projects

ExpertLens has been used in numerous projects in the United States, Canada, and Europe to engage large and diverse groups of stakeholders or seek input from experts with different areas and levels of expertise on a wide range of issues. Here is a sample of recent projects.

• Patient and Caregiver Engagement in Guideline Development

  Goal: To develop the RAND/PPMD Patient-Centeredness Method (RPM) - a new online scalable approach to engaging patients and caregivers in the process of developing clinical care guidelines.
  Participants: 95 individuals with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and their caregivers.
  Funder: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
  Publications: Article (JMIR Research Protocols), Article (Medical Decision Making), Article (The Patient - Patient-Centered Outcomes Research), Article (European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare), Article (European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare)

• pSCANNER

  Goal: To engage stakeholders in the design of patient-centered scalable national network for effectiveness research (pSCANNER).
  Participants: 292 stakeholders, including patients, clinicians, and researchers.
  Funder: Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.
  Publications: Article (Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association), Article (Journal of Clinical Epidemiology), Article (Medical Care)

• Gaps in Medicare Part D Self-Enrollment & Nursing Home Residents

  Goal: To develop a set of prescribing indicators measurable with available data from electronic nursing home databases by adapting the European-based 2014 STOPP/START criteria of potentially inappropriate and underused medications for the US setting.
  Participants: 17 pharmacists, nurses, researchers, and physicians.
  Funder: National Institute on Aging
  Publication: Article (Journal of the American Geriatric Society)

• Metrics to Assess the Impact of Federal R&D Investments

  Goal: To identify a core set of metrics that could be used across Federal agencies to evaluate and compare the impacts of R&D programs.
  Participants: 56 Federal government employees and researchers with expertise in evaluating Federal R&D programs.
  Funder: National Science Foundation.

• Research Ethics

  Goal: To determine the applicability of ethical principles of community-engaged research to translational science projects.
  Participants: 63 stakeholders with expertise in conducting different types of translational research.
  Funder: The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.
  Publications: Article (Translational Research), Article (Journal of Empirical Research on Human Research Ethics)

• Patient Engagement in Care Planning and Design

  Goal: To identify best ways of engaging patients in the context of making outpatient care planning and design decisions at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
  Participants: 48 experts on involving patients in improving outpatient healthcare quality and care design decisions.
  Funder: U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
  Publication: Article (Health Expectations)

• Key Performance Indicators for Evaluating Centralized Intake for Arthritis Care

  Goal: To develop key performance indicators for evaluating centralized intake for arthritis care in Alberta, Canada.
  Participants: 28 Canadian experts in the healthcare field.
  Funder: Alberta Innovates - Health Solutions.
  Client: University of Calgary.
  Publications: Article (Arthritis Research & Therapy), Article (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice)

• Performance Measures for Inflammatory Arthritis

  Goal: To develop system-level performance measures for evaluating models of care for inflammatory arthritis in Canada.
  Participants: 43 Canadian experts in the healthcare field.
  Funder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
  Client: Arthritis Alliance of Canada.
  Publications: Article (The Journal of Rheumatology), Article (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice)

• Cardiovascular Quality Indicators for Rheumatoid Arthritis

  Goal: To develop the first set of quality indicators for cardiovascular primary prevention in rheumatoid arthritis.
  Participants: 37 international experts in the healthcare field.
  Funder: Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
  Client: University of Calgary.
  Publications: Article (The Journal of Rheumatology), Editorial (The Journal of Rheumatology, PDF), Article (Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice)

• Suicide Prevention in Emergency Departments

  Goal: Establish expert consensus regarding the identification of suicidal patients in EDs who can safely receive a discharge disposition.
  Participants: 62 emergency medicine and suicide prevention experts.
  Funder: The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
  Client: Suicide Prevention Resource Center.

• Societal Trends

  Goal: To forecast global societal trends in six domains though 2030 and explore their implications for the European Union.
  Participants: 222 international experts.
  Funder: The European Commission’s Bureau of European Policy Advisors (BEPA).
  Client: RAND Europe.
  Publications: RAND Report, Commentary (Bureau of European Policy Advisors Monthly Bulletin)

• Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI)

  Goal: Identify definitional features of CQI in health care.
  Participants: 119 researchers and practitioners.
  Funder: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
  Publications: Article (BMC Medical Research Methodology), Article (International Journal for Quality in Health Care), Program Report (rwjf.org)

• Suicide Prevention

  Goal: Prioritize National Suicide Prevention research goals.
  Participants: 511 researchers, providers, agency administrators, and people personally touched by suicide.
  Funder: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
  Publications: Overview of Results (actionallianceforsuicideprevention.org, PDF), Article (American Journal of Preventive Medicine), Article (Health Expectations)

• The Future of Mobility

  Goal: To validate two scenarios about the future of mobility in the United States in 2030.
  Participants: 22 international experts.
  Funder: ifmo: Institute for Mobility Research.
  Publication: RAND Report

• HIV/AIDS

  Goal: Forecast the adoption of antiretroviral-based prevention strategies to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
  Participants: 47 international experts on HIV/AIDS.
  Funder: Merck & Co.
  Publications: RAND Report, Project Summary

• Terrorism Litigation

  Goal: Predict the likelihood of several hotel bombing scenarios.
  Participants: 41 lawyers from two law firms.
  Funder: RAND Corporation.

• H1N1 Influenza

  Goal: Evaluate the federal response to the 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic.
  Participants: 415 federal employees from different departments and agencies.
  Funder: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• Media

  Goal: Forecast the future of a UK hyperlocal media sector.
  Participants: 64 experts on hyperlocal media from around the world.
  Funder: The National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts (UK).