NAC Member Profiles
José Pagán: Link Your Research To Current Debates
As the debate rages in Washington over health care reform, how can a nursing researcher get their results in front of policymakers who are making decisions? That's a question José A. Pagán, Ph.D., a member of the Interdisciplinary Nursing Quality Research Initiative (INQRI) National Advis
ory Committee, says INQRI grantees must consider when conducting research.
"Because of health care reform, this is an exciting time to be doing the kind of research that INQRI funds," says Pagán, Professor and Chair of the Department of Health Management and Policy at the School of Public Health, University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth. "We are learning more about the role of nurses and how nurses can improve quality and how nurses can keep costs down."
In that spirit, Pagán says INQRI researchers should be looking for ways to link their results to issues that policymakers are discussing. INQRI grantees should have an answer when a policymaker asks where nursing fits into a reformed health system, Pagán says.
In other words, researchers need "an elevator speech," says Pagán, noting that researchers need to explain the importance of their findings and the implications for health policy in a brief, concise way to effectively connect with busy decision-makers.
Pagán has spent much of his career conducting research that has relevance for current policy debates. Most recently, he and INQRI co-director Mark Pauly have added to the growing body of research that examines the impact on a community when there are high rates of people who lack insurance. Recent research suggests that when community-level rates of uninsurance are high, insured patients are less likely to say they had a regular source of medical care, were less likely to have seen a doctor in the past year and more likely to have trouble getting referred to a specialist. One reason for this may be that uninsured individuals may demand a lower quality and quantity of medical care, which impacts the quality of care for everyone, including the insured.
Pagán says that it's important for policymakers and the public to understand the impact of the uninsured on the health care system. He is attempting to translate this work and show how the uninsured can affect even those who have health care coverage.
"The reason many people may be skeptical about reform is that they don't see what's in it for them. I'm trying to show why covering people can impact you positively," he says.
Similarly, Pagán says INQRI is in a unique position to influence the health care debate because of the interdisciplinary nature of the program, which helps expand the audience that researchers are trying to reach.
"By bringing in people from other fields, it allows nurses to really explain their ideas using a different language that can have a broader appeal," he says. "As systems are developed to reward hospitals for quality, nurses can play a larger role in improving that system and keeping hospitals in good financial health. INQRI brings that to the surface."
Pagán urges INQRI grantees to look beyond the traditional health care audiences and be willing to engage with a variety of groups, including elected officials, schools or others not in the health care field. "You never know who is in the audience," he says. "You may be surprised at how much input you get that is going to enrich your research."