"Not a Kidney or a Lung:" Research challenges in a network of safety net clinics

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To gain a better understanding of the facilitators and barriers to creating a practice-based research network (PBRN) of safety net clinics, we conducted a qualitative study within our network of safety net health centers. METHODS: Utilizing snowball sampling, we conducted interviews with 19 of our founding stakeholders and analyzed these interviews to draw out common themes. RESULTS: The results showed four barriers to research in our network: lack of research generated from clinician questions, lack of appropriate funding, lack of clinician time, and lack of infrastructure. We discuss these results and suggest that inadequate funding for practice-based research, particularly in the health care safety net, is a unifying theme of these four barriers. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that the national funding strategy for research relevant to underserved populations and all of primary care must undergo a fundamental shift. We discuss the features of possible models to meet this need.