Welcome
Tom
Summerfelt, Consumer-Operated Service Program (COSP) Steering Committee
Chair, opened the meeting with introductions and announcements.
Betsy McDonel Herr
Betsy reported that Boston University was
allowed to partner with another site after the withdrawal of Iowa. The new site is in St. Louis, Missouri. The new providers are BJC Behavioral Health, as the
traditional provider, and The Empowerment Center and Places for People as
the COS.
Betsy stated that all of the California providers
withdrew from the program. A
new program, FLICA, is being negotiated and represents a partnership
between Florida and one of the former California sites.
She explained the reason for bringing in these additions is to make
sure that there is enough multi-site power.
Betsy
announced the need for a new Research Subcommittee Chairman. Tom is
stepping down due to his involvement as the Steering Committee Chair. She
said it is important to keep the Research Committee alive to interface
with the Coordinating Center. Ideally,
it should be chaired by a research staff person, as there is a need to
focus on a professional, analytical, and back-to-logic model.
Nominations are need. Tom will compile them and
present the list at Monday’s meeting.
Telecommunications Policy Recommendations
VickiWieselthier, Communications Director
For the purpose of the new Telecommunications Policy,
Vicki explained the differences between an “Open List” and “Closed
List.” An open list is open
to anyone in the world with the exception of the PI List that can be
opened only by the PI or a designated alternative. A closed list is
accessible to COSPers only, but any COSP member who joins can access this
list. Any request for
variance from this decision must be voted upon by the Steering Committee.
Mailing lists are very focused on project business and announcements.
Anything written in the mailing list gets archived and becomes part
of the official record of the Project.
There are three websites:
COSP for project business (cstprogram.org); LYRIS, a software
program; and Freedrive, a file storage area accessible only by password.
COSP contains articles that the general public may view.
Using this website should not present problems or compromise the
general integrity of the grant.
Vicki asked that list users be aware of the
proper net etiquette. “Netiquette”
addresses the tone and appropriateness or inappropriateness of Internet
usage. It is the
responsibility of the net member to be respectful and keep focused on the
work.
Vicki stressed that COSP members do work on the list
not as individuals but as representatives of the constituency group.
List members must be in regular contact with interested members who
are not on the list but who need to be informed in order to contribute to
the decision making process. List
owners have the responsibilities for file maintenance, of being pro-active
in dealing with personal attacks on the website by working with warring
parties to resolve the problem, and for posting information that does not
compromise the scientific integrity of the project.
Contents of items posted to the list stay on
the list. The author of the
list can make a decision about sharing his/her list.
Anyone who moves a discussion from one list to another should keep
others informed, as they will need to know where to find things.
The address to contact any list author is: “COSP-list owner @
mimh.edu”
Contact Jean Campbell or Publications before
posting anything to the web. It
was decided that anything with a lot of information might have to go to a
committee before posting unless it is site specific or has already been
approved by the Steering or Publications committee.
A lengthy discussion ensued about who would have
final approval over articles posted to the web.
The final recommendation of the amendment was: “Routine materials
to be considered for inclusion on the website will be sent to the CCPI who
will either approve them for posting or send them on to the Publications
or Communications Committee for consideration.
More complex materials which may generate bias will be forwarded
from the CC-PI to the Steering Committee for approval.”
The Steering Committee members voted and pass the amendment to the
Telecommunications Policy.
Publication Policy Recommendation
Pat Corrigan – Chair, Publications/Presentations
Pat explained the two goals of the policy were to
support the “Thousand Points of Light” and to get as many ideas out
there as possible by promoting and offering opportunities for people to
publish. He explained the
differences among the papers:
·
Foundation papers are our basic analysis and stipulated in
the GFA
·
Cross-site papers represent all eight sites
·
Sub-cluster papers are those jointly written by COS centers
about their data
·
Site only papers are from one site and are based on Common
Protocol data
·
Site specific papers are based on data other than Common
Protocol data
·
Presentations and cross-site presentations
Pat explained the importance of reviews.
The first author, typically the submitting author, has the
responsibility of putting in a list serve on any publication prior to
review. Anyone in the COSP
has the right to go to Freedrive and review the paper. Within two weeks there will be no more “provide reviews
back” lists to the author.
In the rare event that any person disagrees with something, he
should seek out the author and try to negotiate it.
In the case of a serious disagreement the author should contact
the Steering Committee and they will act as mediators.
Procedures for foundation, cross-site and
sub-cluster papers are the same. Site-only
papers must be submitted before publishing on the website.
Authors of site-specific papers are free and welcome to submit
their papers for review if they want feedback.
The authority that any given site has for speaking
for the project, as a whole needs to be included in the publication
policy. The PWG does not
have approval over papers. The
Steering Committee does.
Tom asked if there should be a vote on the
amendment or should it be sent back to the committee. Greg made a motion
to accept the policy as proposed with the understanding that future
clarification and modifications may be made. One
Steering Committee member was opposed to this motion.
A Steering Committee Roll Call was held. The motion to accept the amendment passed.
Logistics Subcommittee Report
Sally Rogers – Chair
It was recommended that an interview observation
scale be added. Mark is
coming up with some anchors or descriptors based on the Tennessee scale
to help figure out more reliable ways of conducting interviews.
The Committee discussed but has not resolved the
issue of a study blind. Individual
sites won’t know results of the multi-site analysis so that it can’t
influence future data collection or the way the study is conducted.
Tennessee is having a problem with the lag in the start of the
COS intervention. People
randomly assigned had their baseline interview but will not be able to
start the intervention right away - in some cases up to a month and a
half after baseline. Control
subjects do not have a lag.
A discussion took place about the need to re-review
the original informed consent with participants at each assessment
point. Some sites re-review
the full consent, others an abbreviated consent.
Different IRB’s have different requirements. Jean was concerned that if different sites have different
regulations for this re-review process that this could be a source of
undesired variation in procedures among sites.
There were lengthy discussions on the issues of
diagnosis related to recruitment, indicators for assessing functioning,
standardizing level of care ratings, and the reliability of observation
ratings. Some objections were voiced about the definitions of data
fields. Sally said that
voting does not have to take place until the definitions of the fields
are complete. But rather, a
vote we agree in principal that all of these fields should be collected
on a person-by-person basis per site, with the option that the Committee
can enter the actual fields later.
Tom announced that since there is no second to
Crystal’s motion, the group opts to vote electronically when the
definitions of the fields are complete.
Mark seconds the motion to accept all fields presented for
tracking. Helen and Ruth
are opposed. Jean Campbell
conducts the caucus of the sites. The
motion passes by a vote of
10 -6.
There was some concern about who would track the
databases. The Logistics
Committee will come up with recommendations.
Tom announced the new acronym for the follow-up protocol - FUP.
The Draft Manual reflects all recommendations made
by the Logistics Committee. It
will be posted on the Freedrive for review.
Tracking Databases
Sally Rogers, Rita Adkins, Joe Sonnefeld
Recommendation from the Logistic Subcommittee is to
use the Tennessee database developed specifically for the purpose of
tracking. It is an Access
database that can be modified by a site if necessary.
New tracking should be created only if necessary.
It appears that the Tennessee database can satisfy all of the
requirements for quarterly reporting tracking by the Coordinating
Center.
The discussion centered on what information needed
to be tracked. The three
fields that need to be captured in the cross-site database were: 1)
withdrawal from intervention 2) capturing crossovers 3) capturing
withdrawals from the study. It
was recommended that reasons for withdrawal from intervention need to be
tracked. However, “withdrawal” needs to be defined since the date
of last attendance means different things at different sites. Issues
about what figures are needed for quarterly reports were discussed.
Among those mentioned: the number of dropouts; pattern of attendance at
the drop-in centers; last date attended in the study; soft refusals;
measuring the number of times that consumers have used the service; and
crossovers.
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