Moving beyond annual data reports: A blueprint for communicating and disseminating actionable intelligence

Area of Science:

• Translational Science
• Research Evaluation
• Data Dissemination

Background:

• The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) established the Common Metrics Initiative to standardize evaluation of Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Programs.
• The Center for Leading Innovation and Collaboration (CLIC) at the University of Rochester has led this initiative since 2017, focusing on data insight communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To create a framework for communicating and disseminating data insights from the Common Metrics Initiative.
• To develop "Insights to Inspire" as a platform for sharing strategies to improve metric performance within the CTSA network.

Main Methods:

• Employed a mixed-methods approach to translate data into actionable intelligence.
• Utilized blogs, webinars, and webcasts to share site-specific, metric-focused strategies.
• Implemented a dissemination plan including social media, newsletters, and national meeting presentations.

Main Results:

• Successfully created a communication framework, "Insights to Inspire," for the CTSA consortium.
• Facilitated the sharing of metric performance improvement strategies among 60+ academic research institutions.
• Established a model for disseminating data insights to a broad network.

Conclusions:

• The "Insights to Inspire" framework provides a systematic approach for using data insights for continuous improvement in national evaluation programs.
• Effective communication and dissemination strategies are crucial for translating data into actionable intelligence.
• The developed framework can serve as a blueprint for other large-scale research evaluation initiatives.