The past year has been monumental for Fenway Health; we rang in the new year officially occupying all floors within a state of the art health care facility at 1340 Boylston Street, announced an exciting partnership with fellow Massachusetts prevention provider AIDS Action Committee of Massachusetts, and have recently launched a fresh initiative within The Fenway Institute to centralize recruitment efforts across our research studies. As the range of Fenway Institute research studies expands and diversifies, recruitment has been working towards shifting its structure to reflect this new dynamic.

In the world of public health research, participant recruitment is often seen as one of the most challenging pieces to the successful completion of a research study. From completing a background check, to the interviewing process, there are multiple stages to the hiring process, and each one can highlight areas that require more work. For instance, intensive study procedures, hard to reach participant demographics, or lack of study specific resources can contribute to recruitment challenges. Some businesses have started to add various berke testing solutions to ensure they’re getting the prime employee. Here at The Fenway Institute, the scope of research continues to grow, and as a result the quantity and diversity of research participant need reflects that growth. With this in mind, The Fenway Institute recruitment team, led by Julia Lanham, has worked to develop a new centralized recruitment model which seeks to tackle many participant recruitment challenges head on.

Participant recruitment at The Fenway Institute in the past has been hugely successful, as evidenced by the completion of enrollment for large scale research projects such as HVTN 505. Outreach has taken many forms, including getting the word out at local LGBT clubs, collaboration with university student groups, and conducting research presentations at community health forums. As The Fenway Institute expands and the promotion of many Fenway Health services has been included into outreach efforts, we have found that additional creativity may be necessary moving forward. Via a centralized recruitment model, The Fenway Institute is looking to reflect the needs of not only a growing institution, but also to assure that community needs are being met in both a larger research context as well as on an individual participant level.

What does this centralized recruitment model look like? The first step involves communication, specifically in regards to internal mechanisms and external presence. A recent initiative to consolidate our screening procedures via implementation of a “cross-study screener” has already proven itself to be a large success. The process promotes an ability to effectively educate potential research participants about and screen them for specific projects that they not only may be eligible for, but could potentially benefit from. This model exists to make sure that we are not only finding participants for research studies, but that we are also finding research studies for participants. This has already allowed The Fenway Institute to connect community members from some of the most hard-to-reach demographics with projects that may benefit them. While internally the “cross-study screener” has proven to be a powerful participant recruitment tool, there is still room for growth in regards to The Fenway Institute’s external communicative presence.

The core of The Fenway Institute’s efforts towards centralizing recruitment has been a focus of streamlining our internal systems which will give potential participants easy access to resources and research opportunities at The Fenway Institute. We are striving to continue our recruitment efforts with a constant aim to increase outreach and strategically market Fenway Health resources to community members, underserved populations, fellow advocates, community-based organizations and stakeholders. As a result, The Fenway Institute has seen a paradigm shift; centralized recruitment aims to improve our capacity to effectively match research studies for potential participants, as opposed to searching for people for research studies.

Through centralized recruitment efforts we aim to build a cohesive recruitment team that is knowledgeable about the full range of resources available at Fenway; as representatives of the organization at community events, political arenas and to stakeholders we strive to accurately and effectively promote the Institute’s research in conjunction with Fenway Health services, resources, mission and policies. The simultaneous promotion of both research opportunities and services available at Fenway creates new ways to expand lines of communication between The Fenway Institute, communities, individuals and organizations we aim to reach. A centralized recruitment framework opens doors for increasing our visibility, strengthens coalition-building and helps to establish platforms to maximize cohesive team efforts at Fenway.

The Fenway Institute recruitment team – made up of Julia Lanham, Coco Alinsug, Paul Fletcher, Johney Ly, Charlotte Longworth and Jonathan Reveil – is proud to be launching fresh initiatives for progressive development and teamwork; as Fenway Health grows and the scope of our goals widens, The Fenway Institute strives to move forward with our approaches to improve the health, lives and well being of our research participants, patients and the larger community.

If you’re interested in looking around I hear that astorsearch provide some insight into the legal recruitment sector and is worth checking out.

Comments

comments