TY - JOUR T1 - Lessons from Initiating the First Veterans Health Administration (VA) Women's Health Practice-based Research Network (WH-PBRN) Study JF - The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine JO - J Am Board Fam Med SP - 649 LP - 657 DO - 10.3122/jabfm.2015.05.150029 VL - 28 IS - 5 AU - Alyssa Pomernacki AU - Diane V. Carney AU - Rachel Kimerling AU - Deborah Nazarian AU - Jill Blakeney AU - Brittany D. Martin AU - Holly Strehlow AU - Julia Yosef AU - Karen M. Goldstein AU - Anne G. Sadler AU - Bevanne A. Bean-Mayberry AU - Lori A. Bastian AU - Meggan M. Bucossi AU - Caitlin McLean AU - Shannan Sonnicksen AU - Ruth Klap AU - Elizabeth M. Yano AU - Susan M. Frayne Y1 - 2015/09/01 UR - http://www.jabfm.org/content/28/5/649.abstract N2 - Background: The Veterans Health Administration (VA) Women's Health Practice-Based Research Network (WH-PBRN) was created to foster innovations for the health care of women veterans. The inaugural study by the WH-PBRN was designed to identify women veterans' own priorities and preferences for mental health services and to inform refinements to WH-PBRN operational procedures. Addressing the latter, this article reports lessons learned from the inaugural study.Methods: WH-PBRN site coordinators at the 4 participating sites convened weekly with the study coordinator and the WH-PBRN program manager to address logistical issues and identify lessons learned. Findings were categorized into a matrix of challenges and facilitators related to key study elements.Results: Challenges to the conduct of PBRN-based research included tracking of regulatory documents; cross-site variability in some regulatory processes; and troubleshooting logistics of clinic-based recruitment. Facilitators included a central institutional review board, strong relationships between WH-PBRN research teams and women's health clinic teams, and the perception that women want to help other women veterans.Conclusion: Our experience with the inaugural WH-PBRN study demonstrated the feasibility of establishing productive relationships between local clinicians and researchers, and of recruiting a special population (women veterans) in diverse sites within an integrated health care system. This identified strengths of a PBRN approach. ER -