University of Iowa Institute for Clinical and Translational Science

摘要

ABSTRACT The Institute for Clinical and Translational Science (ICTS) at the University of Iowa (UI) has three aims – (1) to promote an innovative, integrated, geographically distributed framework for conducting clinical and translational research, 2) to create new methods and tools that promote research participation, data collection, and interventions that link the clinic to the home and 3) to develop the diverse workforce needed to catalyze innovative science throughout populations. ICTS tackles large problems affecting translational science that require institutional solutions, such as transforming regulatory processes for human subjects research, developing an informatics infrastructure for integrating electronic medical record and other health care data, establishing bi-directional relationships with community organizations, and revitalizing the pipeline of well- trained clinical and translational researchers. Our overarching goal is to accelerate integration of research into clinical partnerships around the state and, through team science, bringing our basic, translational and clinical research workforce together to escalate the pace and breadth of scientific discovery to impact healthcare for the state and beyond. Iowa is a rural state, which brings special health care needs and challenges. We have used these rural considerations as a catalyst for driving our approach to clinical and translational research pushing our teams to develop strategies to engage rural populations of all ages and backgrounds and to create new approaches that overcome the geographic barriers in a rural state. We are capitalizing on our established community practice networks of family physicians, clinics, school nurses and pharmacists. We utilize mobile platforms in novel ways and will test the efficacy of these methods of engagement. As we move research to “IMpact Across Geographies using Innovation, Networks and Engagement- IMAG-INE” we have created methods to capture real-time, real-life data from the home and to correlate this environmentally specific, comprehensive data to human health research and outcomes. The ICTS is engaging with other CTSA hubs and national clinical and translational research systems to empirically test different approaches and to develop the evidence base of proven strategies for accelerating translation that can be more broadly disseminated. Though distance and rurality drive our approaches, the strategies that we develop are simply new and potentially better ways to generate broad representation and improved participation by patients, healthcare teams and academicians. Through our local, state and national collaborations, UI and the ICTS are poised to move clinical and translational discovery rapidly into healthcare practice in a variety of clinical settings.