UCSF Collaborative Research Network (CRN)
Vision Statement

September 2003

The UCSF Collaborative Research Network (CRN) is a practice-based research network of primary care clinicians and researchers working in a variety of settings and communities in Northern and Central California. As CRN members, we are united by a desire to improve care for patients and to make our professional lives more satisfying.

The vision of the CRN is to contribute to the transformation of primary care through a research agenda that emphasizes innovations in health promotion, preventive health, and chronic illness care. The CRN hopes to catalyze specific interventions at the practice level, including improved decision support for clinicians, new medical information systems, delivery system re-design, and innovative approaches to patient self-management. Individual research projects may relate to common disease processes, the general needs of primary care patients, or the specific health needs of a particular patient population or community, including topics at the intersection of primary care and community health. The overarching goal of CRN projects is practice innovation.

The CRN is administered through the UCSF Department of Family and Community Medicine. CRN research is developed and chosen through a collaborative process that includes community-based clinicians and academic researchers. Obtaining funding and conducting research in the CRN is coordinated by UCSF faculty researchers who are committed to work with the CRN’s community-based clinicians to develop projects that respect the realities and constraints of clinical practice.

An underlying principle of practice-based research is that primary care clinicians are the best source of ideas, energy and expertise to determine optimal clinical practices in real world settings. All CRN members are encouraged to participate and take leadership roles in the design and implementation of CRN research and practice improvement projects. As always, individual CRN member practices may choose whether or not to participate in any given CRN project.

As a network of primary care clinicians and researchers, we seek to engage in an exciting process of intellectual inquiry that has the promise of transforming primary care, making life better for our patients and ourselves.