I am working towards my dissertation, and am interested in contacting healthcare, hospitality, or manufacturing organizations. I am primarily interested in collecting survey data at two different time points regarding attitudes towards safety in the workplace. Does anyone have any experience in contacting such organizations?
Thanks for your response, Ruvanee. I was contacting HR personnel, and was being directed to the research and compliance departments. I guess the problem I am experiencing is that the survey I plan to administer will include sensitive information, such as safety attitudes of nursing personnel. Some organizations have made it clear that it would be very difficult for me to collect data at their organization being an outsider and collecting data of sensitive nature.
Some organizations have research committees and/or persons responsible for making decisions regarding any research being conducted in their facilities. Find out first if such committees exist, and who lead them. Contact these people by telephone and then follow up with a letter. Some organizations are very careful about what kind of research they want to be associated with and are concerned about how potential results will impact their bottomline - the public. This approach will give them a chance to review your proposal before they give you a nay or yay.......Hope this helps.
Thanks, Beverly. I did contact some research and compliance departments at healthcare organizations. It appears that most healthcare organizations I contacted did not have such departments. I was able to speak to someone in the research department yesterday, and was told that even though they may look at my IRB, I will have to find hospitals within that organization who are willing to let me collect data. She wasn't able to provide me with much assistance in who to contact at individual hospitals (e.g., HR, nurse coordinators, etc.). Currently I am putting together an IRB application. Hopefully an IRB approval should help with selling my project to these organizations.
Our research team has experience working with healthcare organizations (you can find four recent articles on this topic in my “contributions”). For us it was not easy to find a method for collecting large and high response rates samples (right now, above 70%). I summarize some important ideas:
- Before contacting hospitals, present the project to your university ethics committee for its approval.
- Contact the coordinators of teaching and research into the hospital. Be calm, insist, and you call them, do not wait their call ... they usually do not call.
- To the presentation meeting of the project should be the principal investigator, or the University Professor, and other members of the research team. They do not usually pay much attention to the students if they go alone.
- Prepare a document in which you detail the considerations that will give to them: We have a document with a dozen commitments in this regard (a report that will be sent when the study ends, make available to them the results for their internal quality programs, not to publish any results in media (just in scientifics journals,...)
- Attach a small gift for participants to answer the questionnaire (we are now giving pen for tablets).
- Make easy to them the sample collection by visiting the center a few times a week to make sure everything goes well.
- You have to fulfill your engagements with them
Good luck.
Jose, all relevant points. Thank you! I am currently in the process of drafting my IRB application. I did send a proposal to a number of healthcare organizations, but have not received a positive response yet. The issue so far has been getting a "potential yes."
Be strong and move on. Insists. We got that all the hospitals in our region participated in our study (11 hospitals). We are currently studying the primary care sector and we have already collected data from 37 centers. You have to be persuasive and patient. Courage.
Best wishes
Thanks, Jose. It is definitely encouraging to hear success stories of researchers who have been able to collect data in healthcare organizations. And congratulations, your response rates are commendable!
I agree with the comments above. Most large teaching hospitals are also more open to research and have requisite committees in place. Another source are healthcare professional organizations. Often they will sell the list of their membership for those doing research. If you have a question, like safety even, that might be threatening to a institution, the members of the professional organization might be freer to express concerns.
Thank you, Madelaine. I did contact a couple of nursing associations (like ANA, AANP, etc.) and was told by some that I could buy their mailing lists. That's definitely an option for me. I am seriously considering using the mailing lists in case no organization agrees to let me in to collect data.
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