Abstract Body

In Singapore, primary health care is provided by government polyclinics and private general practitioner (GP) clinics. The latter is usually not subsidized by the government and currently providing around 80% of primary care in the country, managing 55% of chronic patients in the community. This landscape has placed the GPs in an ideal position to conduct primary care research to reach out to the general population. However, participation in research is a challenge for the majority of private practicing GPs due to factors such as limitations of research capacity, inadequate research infrastructure and poor provision of support to individual GPs to conduct research in private setting.

The primary care Research network (pcRn), an initiative to encourage and support high-quality research in family medicine in Singapore, had started a clinical research exploring the feasibility of undertaking pharmacogenetic testing with a Medical Decision Support System (MDSS) to manage long term conditions. Seven of the GP members in this network collaborated with the pcRn to recruit 192 patients from the community. The GP’s involvement includes obtaining consent, collecting buccal swabs, completing clinical research forms, utilizing a MDSS to review medication and following up patients for a duration of 6 months.

Research Collaboration Agreement execution, GP’s CITI certification, MDSS training were completed prior to the initiation of this project in October 2020. Within 10 weeks, 80% of recruitment target was achieved. The highly participatory rate seen in this study has proven GPs can play a pivotal role and contribute to primary healthcare research.