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BIDDEFORD, Maine

Medical researcher Nananda Col appointed to federal DHHS panel to advance patient-centered outcomes research to health educators

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has appointed Nananda Col, MD, MPP, MPH, FACP, UNE Research Professor of Medicine in the College of Osteopathic Medicine and the Center for Excellence in the Neurosciences, to its Technical Expert Panel for a new project titled, Educating the Educators - Dissemination of Patient-Centered Outcomes Research to Health Educators.

As a member of this 12-person panel, Dr. Col will provide advice on developing tools, workshop curricula, and resources to best aid health educators (such as physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, certified health educators, certified diabetes educators, case managers, and pharmacists) to convey key decision-making strategies with patients and caregivers.

The panel will foster health educators’ use of current patient-centered outcomes research (PCOR) resources from the agency's Effective Health Care Program.

The project's goal is to advance patient-centered outcomes research in shared decision-making between health educators and patients/caregivers.

In addition to her appointment at UNE, Dr. Col is the founder of Shared Decision Making Resources.

In the past, Dr. Col has served as a faculty member at Tufts, Brown, and Harvard Medical Schools. She has been the principal investigator on numerous federally funded research, training, contracts, and conference grants that develop and test individualized web-based shared decision making interventions.

She is on the Steering Committee for the International Patient Decision Aid Standards collaboration, which develops standards for decision aids, and the Cochrane Collaboration's Review of Patient Decision Aids, which reviews and updates the scientific evidence.

She serves on the FDA's Risk Communication Advisory Committee, the NIH State-of-the-Science Conference on the Role of Active Surveillance in the Management of Men with Localized Prostate Cancer, and AHRQ's Technical Advisory Panel for the Comparative Effectiveness Review on Treatments for Menopausal Symptoms.

About the University of New England

The University of New England is Maine’s largest independent university, with two beautiful coastal campuses in Maine, a one-of-a-kind study abroad campus in Tangier, Morocco, and an array of flexible, accredited online degrees. In an uncommonly welcoming and supportive community, we offer hands-on learning, empowering students to make a positive impact in a world full of challenges. The state’s top provider of health professionals, we are home to Maine’s only medical college, Maine’s only dental college, a variety of other interprofessionally aligned health care degree programs, as well as nationally recognized programs for marine science degrees, natural and social sciences degrees, arts and humanities degrees, and business degrees.