Three new research awards totaling up to $19.4 million over 5 years is going to address the growing proportion of the U.S population that has multiple chronic medical conditions. The grants are funded through NIH’s Health Care Systems (HCS) Research Collaboratory www.nihcollaboratory.org working with research partners to conduct large-scale clinical studies.
Health care systems that include health maintenance organizations and other large integrated care settings serve large populations of patients. Through the new collaborative research projects, NIH www.nih.gov conducts large-scale and cost-effective clinical research on multiple chronic conditions within settings where patients are already receiving their care.
The HCS Research Collaboratory created by NIH in 2012, currently supports five large-scale clinical trials with partnering healthcare systems across the U.S and a Collaboratory Coordinating Center at Duke University. The funds are managed through the NIH Common Fund http://commonfund.nih.gov that encourages collaboration and supports a series of exceptionally high impact trans-NIH programs.
One project funded involves the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas www.utsouthwestern.edu. The trial “Improving Chronic Disease Management with PIECES (ICD-PIECES)” will implement a collaborative model between primary and subspecialty care using a medical information tool called PIECES. The tool will be tested on patients with multiple chronic conditions to include diabetes mellitus, chronic kidney disease, and hypertension.
The study will be conducted in partnership with four healthcare systems to include the Parkland Health and Hospital System www.parklandhospital.com, Texas Health and Resources System http://texashealth.org, VA North Texas Health Care System www.northtexas.va.gov and ProHealth Physicians, Inc. www.prohealthmd.com. This project will be primarily overseen by the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases www.niddk.nih.gov and secondarily by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute www.nhlbi.gov.
Another project “Pragmatic Trial of Video Education in Nursing Homes” involving Brown University, Hebrew SeniorLife www.hebrewseniorlife.org and Massachusetts General Hospital www.massgeneral.org will use videos to provide information on a tool to use for decision-making when doing advanced care planning in nursing homes to help the patient, family, and healthcare team This project will be overseen by the National Institute on Aging www.nia.nih.gov and secondarily by the National Institute of Nursing Research www.ninr.nih.gov.
In addition, the project “Policy Relevant U.S. Trauma Care System Pragmatic Trial for PTSD and Comorbidity” will be conducted at the University of Washington www.washington.edu to focus on patients being treated for acute physical injuries but who also have PTSD, alcohol and drug use problems, depression, chronic pain, and other medical conditions. This project will be overseen by the National Institute of Mental Health www.nimh.nih.gov and secondarily by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism www.niaaa.nih.gov.