Multi-site Collaboration

Clinical Network Feasibility Awards.  We are pleased to announce that the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Translational Research Network (RTRN), in partnership with Duke University Medical Center and the Duke Translational Medicine Institute, was awarded a Clinical Research Network Feasibility Award (CRNFA) by the National Institute of Health (NIH). The collaborative partnership was one of six to be awarded in the February 2009 selection process.  

In November 2008, The RTRN DTCC partnered with Duke Translational Medicine Institute to apply for NCRR’s Clinical Research Network Feasibility Awards (CRNFAs) that would enable the team to develop standards and interoperable software for clinical data collection and management, to evaluate mapping to CDISC standards, and to determine the economic issues of initially using different institutional software (such as REDCap, ClinTrials, etc.) from which to start the mapping. These software packages are different from the DTCC’s usage of Oracle Clinical.  The resulting maps will likely differ raising an opportunity for an outside vendor to create software to make the mapping more consistent or it may direct the partnering institutions to return to CDISC and suggest that they strengthen their Submission Data Tabulation Model (SDTM).  The one-year project aims to perform a requirements and gap analysis and implementation plan on the use of the CDISC Submission Data Tabulation Model (SDTM) for data transmission between RTRN sites and the RTRN DTCC; and, to perform an economic analysis of use of the standard in RTRN trials.  The CRNFA Program focuses on research in translational science dissemination, cost-benefit/cost-effectiveness analysis and community engagement.