Institutional Factors Influencing Scientist-Physician Partnership

Abstract

Substantial resources invested in biomedical research have generated revolutionary discoveries in medical science. However, it takes on average 17 years to turn about 14% of research findings into changes that benefit patients. Lack of scientist-physician partnership (SPP) is one main reason for the extremely slow translation of science into practice. Our previous study identified several institutional and socio-cultural barriers that hinder SPP and slow down knowledge transfer in medicine. However, the relationships among the identified factors, as well as the prevalence of their impacts on SPP and medical knowledge transfer are not clear. This study focuses on the influence of institutional forces on SPP effectiveness. We hypothesized that institutional forces and arrangements such as academic promotion criteria and organizational collaboration infrastructure are related to SPP performance outcomes including clinical related outcomes, and communication mediates the effect of institutional forces on partnership satisfaction and performance. We surveyed 440 scientists and physicians to test these hypotheses. Our data reveals that academic promotion criteria serves as an incentive and has a positive effect on satisfaction and SPP effectiveness that is measured by both academic and clinical outcomes. Access difficulty to collaborators as an indication of lack of organizational support has a direct negative impact on SPP effectiveness. Organizational collaboration mechanism has a positive effect on communication effectiveness, which fully or partially mediates effects of many institutional factors on partnership outcomes. The study has several practical implications. It provides insights on effective collaboration and knowledge production and translation beyond healthcare system.