Our team is committed to learning about how to do our work better and creating new ways to deliver high-quality palliative care to patients with serious illness.
We are also committed to sharing that knowledge beyond our institution through our collaborative research programs. Multiple members of the palliative care section are funded researchers with dedicated time devoted to generating new knowledge, and many team members are active collaborators in that research.
Our research program benefits from a close relationship with The Dartmouth Institute of Health Policy and Clinical Practice (TDI) at Geisel School of Medicine, and has a long history of productive work with scientists there. Palliative care team members are part of several dedicated research labs studying serious illness.
Healthcare Experience Lab (HEx Lab)
The Healthcare Experience Lab (HEx Lab), led by Dr. Catherine H. Saunders, studies what it is like to have a serious illness for patients, their families, and their clinical teams. Specifically, our researchers use various methods to study care experiences across different diseases, geographical areas, and types of people, all to improve care.
We also study ways to improve experiences, and we are particularly interested in developing interventions to improve conversations patients and care partners have with their clinicians.
Finally, we work to push the needle on ways patients and the public can be involved in research, both as participants and partners. And we study this involvement as well.
At the HEx Lab, we firmly believe that research is more valid, more rigorous and more equitable when patients, care partners and clinicians work closely with us to study and improve care.
Research and Innovation in Serious Illness Lab (RISE Lab)
The Research and Innovation in Serious Illness Lab (RISE Lab), led by Dr. Amber Barnato, studies medical decision-making and health disparities in the context of serious illness care. The RISE Lab is a highly collaborative interdisciplinary research team with members from multiple academic centers.
RISE Lab team members use a variety of research methods, including secondary analysis of claims data and surveys, qualitative methods such as ethnography and interviews, and conduct clinical trials of interventions designed to improve care.
Coproduction Collaboratory
The Coproduction Collaboratory, led by Dr. Glyn Elwyn, works to advance innovation and implementation of co-production. Co-production is the idea that healthcare is a service created by both healthcare providers and patients, and that it seeks to leverage the skills and knowledge of all parties to improve the quality and experience of care.