The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine is part of a statewide partnership that has received a three-year, $7.6 million funding award from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, or PCORI, to support patient-centered health care research throughout Florida and the country. The partnership includes the University of Florida, Florida State University, health care systems, health plans, providers and patients.

The funding award will create a clinical data research network that is part of a larger collaborative initiative called the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, or PCORnet. PCORnet links researchers, patient communities, clinicians and health systems in research partnerships that involve large volumes of health data, enabling researchers nationwide to conduct clinical research more quickly and less expensively. PCORnet ensures that research focuses on the outcomes that matter most to patients and their caregivers.

The PCORI funding will designate the statewide partnership, called the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, as one of 13 clinical data research networks nationwide that is part of PCORnet and striving to accelerate the translation of promising research findings into improved patient care. The consortium includes 22 hospitals, 914 clinical practices and 4,100 physicians, providing care for close to 40 percent of Floridians. “We need a standardized way of presenting information so that everything is uniform across OneFlorida sites,” said Nick Tsinoremas, PhD, IDSC Director, and Director of Biomedical informatics for the University of Miami’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and UM’s principal investigator for PCORnet. “This funding allows us, as one of the consortium’s sites performing clinical research, to begin developing infrastructure that will harmonize each partner’s institutional review boards, research equipment and protocols, and more. The infrastructure is necessary for multi-site trials to begin.”

The funding award supports the creation and maintenance of staffing, new technology and programs to facilitate multiple studies simultaneously as well as data access across the network. The multi-site studies will allow research to be conducted in a variety of clinical settings with a diverse patient population, making research relevant to real-world situations.

“Through OneFlorida, leading health organizations in Florida will finally be able to coordinate multi-site research efforts and access patients eligible for ongoing clinical trials,” said Olveen Carrasquillo, M.D., chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and director of Health Services Research and Policy at the Miller School of Medicine, and member of the OneFlorida Steering Committee. “With the infrastructure being developed through this funding, researchers will be able to implement statewide clinical studies in patient settings to forward evidence-based interventions of common and rare diseases.”

A key focus for the network is the OneFlorida Data Trust, which allows researchers nationwide to use de-identified electronic health data to conduct research and to locate individuals who wish to participate in research. The network’s patient focus allows the public increased access to the research process, both as study participants and as participants in the research process itself.

“OneFlorida will bring together health research and health care delivery,” said Dushyantha Jayaweera, M.D., associate vice provost for human subject research at the Miller School of Medicine. “We are thrilled that the University of Miami is part of this groundbreaking collaboration that will revolutionize clinical research by engaging patients, providers and statewide health systems simultaneously.”

As the two Clinical and Translational Science Award hubs in the state, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the University of Florida have been collaborating since 2012 to integrate and expand statewide clinical research infrastructure. The University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute is leading development of the consortium and will coordinate the funding award.

SOURCE: Miller School of Medicine News