The proposed Heart Failure Regional Clinical Center (HF-RCC) application provides a unique opportunity to access practicing physicians as well as rural and minority outreach to support heart failure research and education. The network is an academic - community physicians partnership pioneered by the Morehouse School of Medicine Community Physicians'Network (CRN), to promote clinical research and practice based quality improvement. The network allows seamless integration of NIH supported clinical protocols at the community practice level. The HF RCC builds up on this model by bringing together the largest Cardiology group practice, in North Atlanta, known in the southeast USA for leading edge practice and research with 2 of the largest and oldest minority owned Cardiology practices in the South Metro Atlanta and surrounding rural communities. The extraordinary geographic reach of the network, its socioeconomic and ethnic diversity is evident from the Heart Failure Registry database, a summary of which is included with this application. Finally, the affiliations with St. Joseph's Hospital and Grady Hospital, large tertiary care centers, respectively known nationally for award winning cardiovascular care and outstanding care delivery to the underserved, provide unprecedented opportunity and credibility to impact cardiovascular care and health disparities. The longstanding mission of MSM to promote equitable care for all is the ultimate engine and passion that drives the network. Indeed participating practices and hospitals have cited this commitment as a key motivator for their interest in the Community Physicians'Network. We have proposed an infrastructure based on our experience and expertise in recruiting and retaining difficult to reach patient populations. The two projects provide an opportunity to fully exploit the intellectual and infrastructure capacity of the Network. Both projects capitalize on the size of the Heart Failure patient population in our RCC, as well as expertise of investigators. Project one draws upon our research interest in remodeling in hypertensive heart disease and heart failure, and also takes advantage of our group's interest in the role of NO in cardiac and vascular remodeling. The second project is largely based on the expertise of our collaborator, Nicholas Chronos, MD in cell based therapies in preclinical and early phase clinical trials. The proposed clinical skills development core integrates existing clinical training resource such as the successful Master of Science in Clinical Research Program at MSM and the sought after cardiovascular research training program at St. Joseph's Research Institute. In summary, we have proposed a very unique application which should serve as a model for future collaborative research networks that seek to actively engage and integrate community practices, a key stated goals of the NIH to map initiative.
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