NIH Collaboratory
Creating a New Infrastructure for Collaborative Research
Leaders conducting pragmatic trials across multiple healthcare systems often face regulatory hurdles, lack of data harmonization, and a lack of cooperation among partners. The NIH Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory seeks to improve how clinical trials are conducted by creating a new collaborative research infrastructure.
Supported by the National Institutes of Health Common Fund, the Collaboratory facilitates learning through the hands-on planning and implementation of pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs). Using demonstration projects, the team is developing policies and practices that engage all partners and enable successful research. In the first round of demonstration projects, the Collaboratory supported seven PCTs focused on reducing or preventing suicide, colon cancer, chronic pain, infections, and more. In July 2014, a second round of funding will support pragmatic trials focused on multiple chronic conditions. Knowledge gained from these PCTs will help to guide our transformation from a "delivery" to a "learning" health care system, in which patients and their doctors can make informed health care decisions based on the best evidence available.
CMTP leads the Stakeholder Engagement Core, one of the seven expert groups that comprise this project, and has established a national Stakeholder Advisory Group (SAG) consisting of patients, providers, payers, policymakers and other stakeholders. The SAG enables experts from outside the Collaboratory and health care systems research enterprise to share their different perspectives, expertise, and responsibilities, and help identify, define and overcome the barriers to the transformation from a delivery system to a learning health care system.
- At its first in-person meeting in May 2013, the SAG discussed the acceptability of alternate approaches to informed consent and engaging patients, providers and health care systems as partners in research. Click here for a meeting summary.
- Learn more about a Learning Health Care System.