About the Veteran Engagement Panel
The VOICE study team included ten Veteran Engagement Panel (VEP) partners; a diverse group of Veterans from around the country. They all live with chronic pain, and made the study more patient-centered by sharing their personal experience and advice to the VOICE research team. As one member explained “Veterans worked to help veterans throughout the study.”
Between 2017-2022, the VEP met with the research team 46 times, and co-presented along with study team members at local and national research meetings. Topics discussed with the VEP include study recruitment and retention, tips for how clinicians can create rapport with their patients living with chronic pain, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on people living with chronic pain, and best practices for clinicians to use during video and telephone visits. The VEP also provided perspectives on study findings and gave advice on how to best disseminate them to the public.
VEP Contributions
How the VEP and patient engagement partners contribute to research
The VOICE VEP shared their thoughts on the value their panel, and patient engagement partners, contribute to research:
- Representing the patient's point of view - “We’re one of them [participants in the study]. We’ve been there.”
- Collective, lived experienced combined with experience maneuvering within healthcare systems as patients.
- Individual contributions and knowledge base; unique experiences with chronic pain and experience with different treatments; the process of “moving through our own pain journey helps us provide insight."
- The panel provided “additional perspective/lens- looking at intent, execution, and results- the VEP forced the study staff to dig deeper and defend choices (or consider making changes).”
VOICE VEP related publications
- In 2021, the VEP was featured in the VA's "Veterans Perspectives" publication.
- In early 2022, the VEP worked together to co-author the study's first publication, “Not all groups come together, but this one just clicks”: Ten Tips for Sustaining an Engagement Panel."
Study Team Meeting, Minneapolis, MN
PCORI National Meeting, Washington, D.C.
Kayde, Army Veteran
Wes, Army Veteran
Ron, Army Veteran
Cheryl, Navy Veteran
Rosie, Navy Veteran
Janet, Navy Veteran
Elijah, Marine Corps Veteran