Who are the clinicians?
The clinicians are doctoral students in clinical psychology who undergo an intensive training program in psychological assessment. Before our clinicians are assigned to a study they undergo extensive preparation in the relevant assessment tool that include weekly didactic instruction, multiple live observation of other clinicians conducting evaluations, and live supervision via video feed by our faculty until the clinician passess a rigorous standard of performance.
Where do you conduct the evaluations?
Think of our clinicians as members of our research team. They can conduct the evaluations at the location that your research required, such as your laboratory, a clinic, schools, or another community location within reasonable distance of Ann Arbor.
Can PAC clinicians conduct all of the assessments for our study?
It depends. If you use the PAC-Initiated Scheduling option (see below), our clinicians could conduct all of the assessments for your study provided that your study demands are not beyond our capacity to provide services in terms of number, frequency, and timing of assessments. It is more likely that our clinicians will conduct a significant portion of your assessments but your study team will still conduct some of the assessments.
How do you coordinate scheduling?
We work with your project coordinator in the scheduling of clinicians. We maintain a PAR MCalendar that is used for scheduling using two approaches:
Study-Initiated Scheduling. Under this approach, your study team adds events to the PAR calendar when a participant is scheduled and you would like our PAC team to provide assessment. Our team then assigns a clinician to the event. If we are unable to assign a clinician, we would notify your project coordinator. If the participant is added to the schedule at least two weeks prior to the assessment date, we promise to notify you of our availability at least one week prior to the assessment date.
PAC-Initiated Scheduling. Under this approach, we will add events to the PAR calendar for times when clinicians are available to conduct assessments. Your team can then schedule participants knowing that a clinician will be available to conduct the testing. We provide times using study-specific codes, so that you will know if the clinician available is one that has been trained and assigned for your specific study.
What are the costs?
>During the pilot phase of this initiative (2015-2016 academic year), the PAC services are provided at no cost to IRB approved studies. In the future we will may charge a nominal fee per assessment to cover administrative cost. We anticipate that this fee will be significantly below the customary per-hour cost of paying a clinician to conduct a similar assessments.
