Program Snapshot
The overall goal of the NIH HCS Research Collaboratory program is to strengthen the national capacity to implement cost-effective, large-scale research studies that engage health care delivery organizations as research partners. The aim of the program is to the effectiveness and efficiency of “pragmatic” clinical trials by creating resources and best practices for collaborative research with healthcare systems in real-world clinical settings. As opposed to randomized controlled trials that test efficacy of a treatment in a strictly controlled population, pragmatic clinical trials are designed to provide health care providers real world evidence on the benefit and risks of particular treatment options.
The program currently supports a series of pragmatic clinical trials that take place at the site of care within health care delivery systems. These embedded pragmatic clinical trials address a range of pressing public health concerns including cancer screening, pain management, kidney dialysis, hospital-acquired infections, medication adherence, suicide prevention, and advanced care planning and take place at medical centers across the country. Lessons learned from these projects are being documented by the Collaboratory to inform the design and implementation of future pragmatic trials. For more information about these trials please see the public health relevance page.
To provide critical infrastructure to address the unique challenges of embedded pragmatic clinical trials and disseminate lessons learned, the program also supports a Collaboratory Coordinating Center. For example, the Coordinating Center oversees a number of Cores/Working Groups that each focus on a unique aspect of conducting pragmatic clinical trials. The Cores/Working Groups then provide essential guidance to the pragmatic clinical trial investigators. Learn more about the Collaboratory Cores/Working Groups.
Visit the Health Care Systems Research Collaboratory website maintained by the Collaboratory Coordinating Center for detailed information on:
- Collaboratory Organizational Structure
- Pragmatic Clinical Trial Projects
- Cores/Working Groups
- The Knowledge Repository - a collection of Collaboratory documents and resources
This page last reviewed on December 13, 2018