This is an application under PA-18-935: Urgent Competitive Revision to Existing NIH Grants activated under Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): NIA Availability of Administrative Supplements and Revision Supplements on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) to revise our currently active R24: R24AG064191. The original purpose of the R24 Roybal Coordinating Center is to provide strategic leadership, efficient coordination, inspired support, and creative dissemination for the Edward R. Roybal Centers. We propose a competitive revision to this existing grant to meet immediate dissemination needs to help address the speci?c public health crisis by the Northwell Health COVID-19 Research Consortium. It is entitled ?Rapidly Disseminating Scientific Advances about Northwell Health COVID-19+ Clinical Care to Impact Health and Welfare of Persons across the Life Course in the United States.? We propose to do so under NOT-AG-20-022. We have created an IRB-approved registry data (?data mart?) on all COVID-19 suspected patients. The data mart includes all clinical, outcome, laboratory, socio-demographic, and geographic characteristics of persons presenting under suspicion for, being tested for, or diagnosed with COVID19. Specifically, it includes information needed to answer vital and urgent public health questions about how to detect, test, and manage patients with this disease. For example, it includes data from thousands of patients on mechanical ventilation status, use of hydroxychloroquine, chronic use of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin II receptor blockers, compassionate injection of serum donated from recovered COVID-19+ patients, as well as many other variables. Northwell is the healthcare system with the largest volume of COVID-19 patients in the country. As of April 3, 2020, we had a total of 5700 COVID-19+ confirmed patients (mean age, 62.4 years; 39.7% female; 20.1% Hispanic; 23.7% African American). Northwell Health is the largest academic health system in New York, with approximately 4,844 hospital beds and 672 ICU beds, serving approximately 11 million persons in Long Island, Westchester, and New York City. Because the pandemic is predicted to extend several seasons, we are requesting 2 years of support, to ensure that the long-term, as well as short-term, consequences of this pandemic can be fully and transparently reported. This is critical, because the social, economic, institutional, and policy environments addressing the COVID-19 pandemic may differentially impact the health and welfare of people across the life course and in vulnerable social and medical groups, such as those with Alzheimers or other related dementias. We have the data, resources, leadership will, and commitment to accomplish this mission. It would be highly impactful to rapidly address the research dissemination and productivity of the Northwell healthcare system to ensure that other healthcare systems can benefit from what we have learned and continue to learn in addressing this pandemic and addressing disparities in care.
We are currently in the midst of a global pandemic associated with the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Cases were first reported in December, 2019, and since then, the virus has rapidly spread around the globe, and is expected to infect millions of Americans. Northwell Health, the third largest integrated healthcare system in the country, has the largest number of infected patients in the country. The Northwell Health COVID-19 Research Consortium will accomplish the urgently needed mission of rapid, rigorous, and transparent reporting of the clinical-care expertise and scientific advances from the U.S. to aid in battling this pandemic.
