Each COIN works closely with patient care services and operational partners throughout the VA healthcare system and the PRIME Center has promoted interdisciplinary, cross-institutional collaboration in their focus areas.
For research associated with the focus area of pain, the Center’s primary partnership is with the National Pain Management Program Office. Additional key partners are the Women’s Health Services, as well as with the VA Integrated Health Coordinating Center, whose members serve as consultants and experts in pain and pain management on the VA’s Whole Health Initiative rollout evaluation team.
Center investigators also support the research and dissemination mission of these partners by serving in leadership roles on the Pain Research Working Group and the National Pain Management Strategy Coordinating Committee.
The PRIME Center plays a central role in the NIH/DoD/VA Pain Management Collaboratory pragmatic trials that are examining the use of non-pharmacological interventions in real world settings. The Center serves as a stakeholder and partner to the Collaboratory Coordinating Center and is the home to four Collaboratory studies. In these capacities, the Center and its investigators will broaden their network of collaborations as well as be involved in key definitions for future research such as harmonization of methods and definitions for pain research, identification of pain phenotypes, and refinement of technological methods for data collection and treatment delivery. Investigators in our pain focus area of research collaborate with investigators at nine of HSR&D’s Centers of Innovation.
Although Women’s Health was added as a Center focus area in 2016, the Center has a strong relationship with Dr. Patricia Hayes, Chief Consultant, WHS. Dr. Bastian, PRIME’s director, has a strong collaborative relationship with WHS including collaborations on important women’s health position papers, and several service-directed evaluations and research projects. Sally Haskell, MD, a Core Investigator at the Center, is also the Deputy Chief Consultant for WHS. Both doctors Bastian and Haskell, as well as other Center Investigators, provide regular contribution and leadership at WHS meetings, national conferences calls, and work groups, and are also regular members of the VA Women’s Health Research Consortium.
Additional partnerships include those in VA Central Office, as well as strong working regional relationships with research partners at the VISN 1 New England Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center; the Northeast Program Evaluation Center; the Clinical Epidemiology Research Center; and the National Center for PTSD.