Qualitative Methods in Primary Care with Dr. Deb Cohen

Relational Rounds

Dr. Deb Cohen is an expert in qualitative and mixed measured research with more than two decades of experience, half of that focused on primary care practices, clinician-patient communication, and health IT. Dr. Cohen’s work in EvidenceNOW has as an ultimate goal to really dig into the understanding of what changed and why in primary care, how much facilitation support was needed and the touches that facilitators made with the practices which finally are what really are going to make the field move forward. Dr. Cohen shares in this episode a unique perspective about primary care and its challenges and projections for the future.

Key takeaways:

[:35] Dr. Deb Cohen career briefing.

[1:32] Being a qualitative methods specialist.

[2:37] What does Dr. Cohen find attractive in primary care?

[4:10] The importance of a family doctor.

[4:45] Primary care doctors’ overloads of work.

[6:08] How did Dr. Cohen’s project start and unfold?

[8:37] Challenge that doctors have to unlearn things when evidence is pointing in other direction.

[12:06] Mixing quantitative and qualitative data.

[13:41] EvidenceNOW is not an evaluative entity.

[14:10] Are there any prevailing themes for particular kinds of clinics?

[14:45] Small clinician-owned practices in the last decades.

[17:19] Detecting burnout.

[20:21] Investment in primary care.

[23:02] The art of finding out what are the active ingredients of an intervention.

[24:05] Learning about the work of community health workers.

[25:03] Why don’t researchers talk to each other?

[26:42] What is next for Dr. Cohen?

[29:03] The adaptive reserve.

[32:33] Rapid fire questions.

Mentioned in this Episode:

Relational Rounds at Primary Care Progress

Primary Care Progress on Twitter

Elizabeth Metraux on Twitter

EvidenceNOW