OCTOBER 30, 2019 BY KENDAL BACHARACH

Happenings: September Face-to-Face PaTH Steering Committee Meeting

In mid-September, all seven PaTH sites gathered at the University of Pittsburgh for a two-day Steering Committee Meeting. The principal investigators, project managers, informatics teams, as well as PaTH patient partner, Treva Alston, were on hand to discuss the exciting happenings within the network. We were especially excited to meet our newer colleagues in-person from the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan who, as you may recall, recently joined the PaTH network.

The meeting discussion included a variety of topics important to the network, but we also made sure to have some fun with our PaTH colleagues along the way. One such topic of discussion centered on what the network calls Future Research Topics (FRT). The FRT group is a PaTH working group which helps researchers understand the resources that the PaTH network is able to provide and the costs for providing study data and other resources. The FRT working group meets on a weekly basis to hear presentations from researchers interested in using PaTH data. The group then collectively decides if the project is a good fit for the network’s data and resources. The PaTH network is always looking to improve the process and the discussion led to new and fresh ideas. We also heard about updates to the PCORnet Common Data Model (CDM) from our IT colleagues from the seven PaTH sites and learned about updates to work with being done with Medicare data. The group also had the opportunity to hear about the successes of many of our PaTH studies. Dr. Wendy Bennett from Johns Hopkins University spoke about her trial, Daily24, which looks at the impact of timing of eating on weight using a user-friendly mobile application. The TARGET Trial was also on-hand to share the study’s success in comparing two approaches for treating patients with acute back pain within the primary care setting. Another important topic of discussion was our social media presence and how the PaTH network might better increase our engagement with both the community and researchers about the exciting work being done within the network. Further, the group worked to brainstorm about IRB processes and ways to sustain our network long term. Overall it was a successful two-day meeting and we are excited to see what the future holds for PaTH.