INNOVATIVE METHODS FOR STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT: AN ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN Mallery C1, Ganachari D2, Smeeding L2, Fernandez J2, Lavallee D3, Siegel J4, Robinson S2, Moon M1 1American Institutes for Research, Silver Spring, MD, USA, 2American Institutes for Research, Washington, DC, USA, 3Center for Medical Technology Policy, Baltimore, MD, USA, 4Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), Rockville, MD, USA OBJECTIVES: Involving stakeholders in research helps ensure that research is relevant and responsive to stakeholder needs while improving the quality of the research. This research was conducted as part of AHRQ’s Community Forum project which was charged with identifying emerging strategies and state of the art methods for engaging stakeholders. METHODS: We developed a conceptual framework for stakeholder engagement that informed this literature scan and assisted in organizing findings. The scan included a search of peer-reviewed literature, using academic databases as well as an Internet search of grey literature and Web sites. Our final review included 23 peer-reviewed articles, 15 grey literature documents, and 43 Web sites related to stakeholder engagement. To supplement our scan, we conducted 11 interviews with individuals experienced in the field of stakeholder engagement. Our technical experts also suggested organizations and Web sites to explore in our literature review. RESULTS: We identified many promising methods of involving stakeholders in research. One example is using online collaborative platforms to enable interactions between an organization and its stakeholders through a virtual space. These allow users to share information, work together, and provide feedback to stakeholders about how their input is being used. Other examples include product development challenges, utilizing existing online communities, and grassroots community organizing. Selected recommended practices from our review include gaining trust of stakeholders before involvement and maintaining throughout; selecting stakeholders for whom the decision or research has important consequences; and educating stakeholders on their roles, their responsibilities, and the topics being discussed. A limitation to our findings is that there are limited evaluation data measuring outcome effectiveness of these methods. CONCLUSIONS: Stakeholder involvement is critical to health care research. This presentation will highlight selected effective and creative approaches to stakeholder engagement.