[DGFG] [RFP, Hybrid, United States] Patient Research Consultant

[Wenjing Zhang]

🪪 Patient Research Consultant (Primary Care Coalition)

📍 United States, Silver Spring (Hybrid)

🕣 RFP

💵 No salary information provided

Request for Proposals: Patient Research Consultant for Primary Care Coalition (PCC)

The Challenge:

The Primary Care Coalition (PCC) is committed to improving specialty care delivery through its Project Access program by better understanding patient experiences and perspectives. Project Access provides low-cost specialty care services to low-income, uninsured patients in Montgomery County, Maryland.

Project Access has a network of 60 specialists who provide the following types of care: Allergy, Anesthesia, Audiology, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Gastroenterology, General Surgery, Hematology/ Oncology, Infectious, Disease, Laboratory Services, (Quest) Nephrology, Neurology, Occupational Therapy Ophthalmology Orthopedic Surgery, Pain Management, Physical Therapy, Podiatry, Pulmonology, Radiation, Oncology (limited), Radiology (general and interventional), Rheumatology, Thoracic Surgery, and Urology.

The process:

1. Eligible patients are referred to PCC Project Access by their primary care providers.
2. The PCC Project Access team calls patients to schedule their specialty care appointments.
3. Next, the PCC team sends patients a paper referral letter in the mail.
4. Patients bring their paper referral letters to the specialist office on the appointment date.
5. Specialty care providers are required to send consult notes to PCC and patients’ primary care providers to support continuity of care.
6. Patients call PCC or their primary care providers to schedule a follow-up appointment with the specialists if they need one.

PCC is interested in understanding how prepared patients feel before and during the appointments, and whether they know what to do after the appointment.

PCC seeks a consultant who can engage patients thoughtfully and respectfully, gather meaningful insights, and translate those into actionable recommendations to improve patients’ experience. The consultant will design and execute a short-term research engagement that includes planning, recruitment, interviewing, synthesis, and reporting within a 5-week timeframe.

Target Research Participants

Patients who have received specialty care through PCC programs, with a focus on:

• Language diversity: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Mandarin, French, and Amharic speakers
• Age groups: Youth, adults under 40, and adults over 40
• Care complexity: Patients requiring one referral, multiple referrals, or surgery procedures

Scope of Work:

Proposed activities may include, but are not limited to:

• Development of research methods and a patient recruitment plan
• Recruiting patients with provided resources and contacts
• Issuing patient incentives
• Creation of interview guides and consent materials
• Recruitment and scheduling patient interviews
• Conducting interviews (virtual, phone, or in-person)
• Thematic analysis of interview data
• Visualizing end-to-end patient journey of receiving specialty care services (customer journey map example: https://www.nngroup.com/articles/customer-journey-mapping/ )
• Creation of a final report summarizing findings and recommendations

Deliverables:

• Research methods and patient recruitment plan
• Interview guide
• Consent form
• Research finding report with patient journey map
• Presentation of findings, journey map, and key recommendations

Timeframe

• Project Duration: 5 weeks
• Expected Start Date: October 17th

Proposal Submission

Please send a short proposal (5 pages maximum) to PCC VeronicaVe...@PrimaryCareCoalition.org and WenjingZh...@PrimaryCareCoalition.org by 11:59 p.m. on October 10th.

Proposals must include:

• Description of approach to patient-centered research and interviewing for the challenge
• High-level work plan including proposed number of interviews and timeline
• Description of consultants’ qualifications and relevant experience
• 3 references for work on similar projects
• Cost of services with hours of work required.

If you have any questions, please send them via email to PCC. VeronicaVe...@PrimaryCareCoalition.org and WenjingZh...@PrimaryCareCoalition.org by

RFP Date

RFP Release Date: October 3rd, 2025

🚀 Contact wenjin...@primarycarecoalition.org to apply

--

 👋 Shared by Wenjing Zhang (wenjin...@primarycarecoalition.org)

🔗 Post a new job to DGFG Slack + Google Groups