​Over the past seven years, research endeavors at Carilion Clinic have grown exponentially in scope, staff resourcing, and the number of new Principal Investigators. This growth coincides with the first NIH funding for iTHRIV through the Clinical Translational Science Award (CTSA) program, which included partners University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, Carilion Clinic, and Inova Health. The partner organizations worked together to draft and execute a multi-institutional Master Research Collaboration Agreement that allowed collaborations to be initiated through the submission of a task order, instead of requiring a new agreement each time for any of the participating iTHRIV institutions. This master agreement continues to facilitate multi-institutional research and reduce start-up times for collaborations across iTHRIV.

 

Another important development was the implementation of REDCap within the Carilion research enterprise. Although REDCap is primarily used for research project data collection, Carilion also uses the system to design and manage their Research Application process. In addition to collecting high level pre-study information, the platform generates automatic routing for Section Chief / Department Chair approval, which improves institutional research program efficiency at Carilion. REDCap was also utilized to conduct two Commonwealth-wide COVID Seroprevalence studies in collaboration with the University of Virginia, in addition to a Carilion project conducted in Southwest Virginia during the pandemic. REDCap allowed Carilion research teams to perform decentralized public surveillance studies while many research staff were working remotely and participants were enrolled across varying locations.

 

Carilion researchers have also benefited from the implementation of TriNetX. TriNetX offers a limited dataset which facilitates the collaborative research between Carilion, Virginia Tech, and other Virginia institutions. These projects have led to several peer-reviewed manuscripts.

 

Lastly, one of the most important aspects of the iTHRIV partnership for Carilion has been the opportunity to increase funded research studies through the iTHRIV Pilot Grant and the Scholar Programs. In many cases, these collaborations with iTHRIV partners lead to follow-up studies and other funding opportunities. In addition, Carilion Clinic has been an active participant in educational opportunities offered through the iTHRIV Workforce Development Core including Clinical Research Coordinator mentoring.

 

The Carilion Research & Development (R&D) Office supports all administrative aspects of research projects at Carilion. R&D services include comprehensive budget development and contract negotiation, regulatory guidance, and EPIC assistance. R&D manages a centralized team of Clinical Research Coordinators that are available to offer support services in a variety of therapeutic areas. The Human Research Protections Office manages three IRB committees to provide timely study reviews. The Health Analytics Research Team provides HIPAA compliant data acquisition, information management and statistical analysis services. Research Compliance works to ensure research activities comply with internal policies and procedures, as well as federal, state and local regulations and regulatory agencies’ requirements. They also ensure any non–compliance is identified and corrected. Full project support is provided through these Offices at Carilion, each having a team of dedicated professionals whose collaboration is facilitated by a Research Oversight Committee which meets monthly. The R&D leadership team remains actively engaged with iTHRIV through working groups, core programs, and operational teams. The iTHRIV partnership provides opportunities to share best practices, foster research collaborations across Virginia, and accelerate our shared iTHRIV goal to use data to improve health for all.