ABOUT PRACTICE-BASED RESEARCH NETWORKS Practice Facilitators and Practice-based Research Networks

Practice facilitators (PFs) are health care professionals, who assist primary care practices in research and quality improvement activities. Their work goes beyond data collection and feedback and includes practice enhancement methods to facilitate system-level changes. PFs provide a framework for translat-ing research into practice by building relationships, improving communication, facilitating change, and sharing resources in practice-based research networks (PBRNs). The work of PFs is funded from a vari-ety of sources, including academic grants and renewable contracts with national, state, and local health care agencies. Limited information is available on cost-effectiveness of PF interventions. This article provides examples of how the PF model was implemented in 4 PBRNs in the United States. (J Am Board Fam Med 2006;19:506–10.) Although practice facilitators (PFs) have been em-ployed in Europe and Australia since the early 1980s, the concept is relatively new in the United States.1–3 The recent evolution of primary care practice-based research networks (PBRNs) and their involvement in translational research led to