The Research Family Advisory Committee: the patient and family view of implementing a research-focused patient engagement strategy

Patient engagement in research, a collaborative practice of including patients and families as active and respected partners in the research process, leads to improved quality of patient care and positively affects outcomes for patients and families. There is strong support for the benefits of patient engagement. What is less clear are the methods by which organizations can achieve authentic patient engagement in research and the ways a committee structure can support an institutional research engagement need beyond the individual investigators. In this report, we describe the mechanisms needed to support the implementation of a research-focused patient engagement strategy and lessons learned from the patient and family perspective.