About Us

Who We Are

We are a statewide network of primary care clinicians, community partners, and academicians dedicated to studying the delivery of health care, improving the health of Oregonians and reducing rural health disparities. Since our start in 2002, we have completed more than 80 funded projects and are nationally recognized for expertise in practice facilitation and implementing patient-centered primary care home (PCPCH) practice redesign initiatives. Click here to meet the ORPRN Staff.

Advisory Board

The ORPRN Advisory Board serves as the connection between and with primary care throughout the state of Oregon and the ORPRN faculty and staff at OHSU. Click here to learn more about current board members and how you can become a part of it.

Core and Affiliated Investigators

ORPRN Core Investigators are non-ORPRN OHSU faculty who partner with ORPRN by serving as principal investigators on projects within ORPRN and commit to ongoing development of research collaborations with ORPRN. Click here to meet our Core Investigators.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) defines a primary care practice-based research network, or PBRN, as a group of ambulatory practices devoted principally to the primary care of patients, and affiliated in their mission to investigate questions related to community-based practice and to improve the quality of primary care. This definition includes a sense of ongoing commitment to network activities and an organizational structure that transcends a single research project. PBRNs often link practicing clinicians with investigators experienced in clinical and health services research, while enhancing the research skills of the network members.

Learn  more about PBRNS:

AHRQ also defines practice facilitation as a supportive service provided to a primary care practice by a trained individual or team of individuals. These individuals use a range of organizational development, project management, quality improvement, and practice improvement approaches and methods to build the internal capacity of a practice to help it engage in improvement activities over time.

“A growing body of evidence supports practice facilitation as an effective strategy to improve primary health care processes and outcomes, including the delivery of wellness and preventive services, through the creation of an ongoing, trusting relationship between an external facilitator and a primary care practice.”
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Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. Practice Facilitation. 2017

ORPRN primarily uses Practice Enhancement Research Coordinators (PERCs) to deliver practice facilitation.

Quality improvement (QI) consists of systematic and continuous actions that lead to measurable improvement in health care services and the health status of targeted patient groups. The Institute of Medicine (IOM), which is a recognized leader and advisor on improving the Nation’s health care, defines quality in health care as a direct correlation between the level of improved health services and the desired health outcomes of individuals and populations.
-Health Resources and Services Administration. Quality Improvement. 2011

Project ECHO® (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is a telementoring education model originally developed at University of New Mexico to build the capacity of primary care clinicians to manage health conditions that they typically refer to specialty care. The Oregon ECHO Network, housed within ORPRN, is a statewide utility providing educational programs and support services utilizing the ECHO model.