Collaborate with Us

Through partnerships in research, Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) is discovering practical ways to deliver high-quality, affordable health care. We bring experience, competence, and unique capabilities for high-impact results.

Our strengths include experience in large epidemiologic studies, randomized trials, and pragmatic clinical trials — finding answers to important questions within real-world populations.

Faculty partnerships ensure a good fit

If you’re interested in conducting research at Kaiser Permanente Washington, you must collaborate with a KPWHRI faculty member. This ensures that proposed projects are consistent with Kaiser Permanente Washington policies and that any potential effects on the care-delivery system are addressed. KPWHRI collaborators are particularly needed for studies that affect patient care or collect either large amounts of Kaiser Permanente Washington data or certain types of sensitive data.

Be aware that projects involving Kaiser Permanente Washington programming or staff time require external funding.

You may contact our faculty members directly to establish a collaboration based on common areas of interest. If there is no KPWHRI faculty member for you to partner with, you may ask the KPWHRI Feasibility Review Committee to evaluate your proposal. The committee helps KPWHRI leadership determine if an external project is a good fit for Kaiser Permanente Washington and may also help you find a KPWHRI faculty collaborator.

Our feasibility criteria

KPWHRI determines a potential project’s feasibility based on:

• Relevance to Kaiser Permanente Washington's primary mission
• Feasibility of the proposed research activity in the Kaiser Permanente Washington care-delivery system
• No conflicts with concurrent Kaiser Permanente Washington studies
• Availability of a KPWHRI faculty member to collaborate with and/or monitor the project
• Impact on Kaiser Permanente Washington, KPWHRI, and Washington Permanente Medical Group resources

Working with a KPWHRI faculty guide

If you’re proposing research at Kaiser Permanente Washington in collaboration with an identified KPWHRI faculty member:

• Your KPWHRI collaborator is responsible for guiding you and your application through our grant development and research-review processes. 
• You do not need to submit your project to our Feasibility Review Committee.

Working without a KPWHRI faculty guide 

If you’re proposing research at Kaiser Permanente Washington and have not yet identified a KPWHRI faculty collaborator:

• Our Feasibility Review Committee must review your project. This includes research proposed by KPWHRI affiliate faculty members, Kaiser Permanente Washington staff, or Washington Permanente Medical Group staff, and researchers affiliated with other institutions. 
   
• Please contact the chair of the Feasibility Review Committee at least 8 weeks before your grant is due to the funding agency. This is particularly important if patient recruitment and review of medical records are involved. If your project appears to be a good fit for Kaiser Permanente Washington, the chair will ask you to complete and submit an application form, which we will send to our faculty to help you find a KPWHRI investigator to collaborate with on the project. 
   
• Applications are due 10 days before the committee’s monthly meeting, which occurs the fourth Thursday of each month. 
   
• The Feasibility Committee will review your application and notify you of its decision by e-mail within a week after the meeting.
   
• Studies that collect Kaiser Permanente Washington data as their primary source of data must have any resulting publications reviewed by Kaiser Permanente Washington before publication.