In a new episode of the Rethinking Clinical Trials Podcast, Julie Fritz of the University of Utah and Sebastian Tong of the University of Washington expanded on key takeaways from their recent Grand Rounds presentation, “Integrating the BeatPain Study With PRaCTICe, a New Network Research Hub of the CARE for Health Initiative.”
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In an effort to connect patients in rural areas with innovative care, the Primary Care Rural and Frontier Clinical Trials Innovation Center (PRaCTICe) partnered with BeatPain. In the podcast, Fritz and Tong discuss what made the partnership a good fit.
“The BeatPain study was meeting a need that clinicians that patients had identified: access to non-pharmacological treatments for chronic pain that are evidence-based in many places there just wasn’t access to physical therapy,” said Tong.
Roughly a year into their collaboration, PRaCTICe had referred 165 patients to the BeatPain team, 95% of which were rural residents. Fritz and Tong each shared some of their lessons learned around building trust and capacity in low resource settings.
“Local people who support what you’re doing, that you build relationships with so they know that you’re doing the best you can by the participants that come out of their clinics, I think that’s been key to building successful partnerships. Both at the clinical level and at the patient level,” said Fritz.
BeatPain Utah, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, is comparing the effectiveness of nonpharmacologic intervention strategies for patients with back pain seeking care in federally qualified health centers throughout the state of Utah.
Fritz is the principal investigator for BeatPain Utah and a distinguished professor of physical therapy and athletic training at the University of Utah. Tong is a co–principal investigator for AIM-CP, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, and an associate professor of family medicine at the University of Washington.