The Role of Health Coaches on a Clinical Research Team: Development & Implementation of a Health Coach-Informed Research Model During User Testing of a Lupus Whole Health Intervention

The purpose of this paper is to describe the impact of a health coach-informed research model within an interdisciplinary lupus research team during intervention development and user testing. Health coaches are increasingly integrated into lifestyle medicine interventions for chronic disease management, but their role has largely been described in intervention delivery, with limited research on their integration during development. The Lupus WHEEL (Whole Health Empowerment for Endotypes of Lupus) program, is an interdisciplinary intervention designed for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), adapted from a shared medical appointment model originally developed for type 2 diabetes. Two National Board-Certified Health and Wellness Coaches (NBC-HWC) served as active interdisciplinary research team members across three phases: pre-user testing, during user testing, and post-user testing. Integration was supported by disease-specific clinical immersion, weekly interdisciplinary team meetings, and a coach-developed debrief tool for real-time observations. Throughout the study, coach integration extended beyond intervention delivery to include program refinement, scope-of-practice review, structured debriefing, and shared research team decision-making, resulting in restructured session sequencing, revised goal tracking, and content adjustment based on participant feedback. Notable insights were that earlier integration of health coaches expanded their role beyond delivery, fostered bidirectional learning, and highlighted the value of clinical immersion, offering a replicable framework for lifestyle medicine research teams. Trial Registration: Whole Health Empowerment for Endotypes of Lupus: Improving Quality of Life in SLE (WHEEL). ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT06720584. URL: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06720584 . Unique Protocol ID (IRB): Pro00111699.