The Clinical Protocol and Data Management Shared Resource provides a centralized resource that assists clinical researchers with regulatory, financial and administrative services in order to facilitate efficient activation of protocols thus allowing the researcher to focus on scientific research needs and patient care. Programs of the resource serve to increase awareness of and accrual to clinical trials, as well as to centralize and standardize the quality and efficiencies of conducting clinical research in compliance with the regulatory, documentation and oversight requirements. The resource is led by Faculty Director, George Fisher, MD, PhD, and the Facility Director, Miriam Bischoff MS, MBA. They, along with Branimir Sikic, MD, Associate Director, Clinical Research, have led this organization since its inception in 2003. An Executive Committee sets the direction for the resource. Over the past six years the resource has expanded its role and authority. It has achieved a level of respect within the School of Medicine that has led to agreements with key departments and the IRB. This has expanded the resource's role, and resulted in increased centralization and improved efficiencies for cancer clinical research. For example, all adverse event reports are now sent first to the resource for real-time processing and review by the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee (DSMC), and only sent to the IRB when the DSMC deems it appropriate to do so based upon guidelines provided by the IRB and the committee's judgment. All studies with industry support are now budgeted by the resource. This has resulted in decreased time in budget development and increased chargebacks. New standard operating procedures and training programs have been developed and deployed to improve research quality, especially of our investigator initiated trials. We have taken steps to integrate research operations with the Northern California Cancer Center (NCCC). All applicable NCCC studies are in the OnCore clinical trials database. Funding for the resource has increased from $750,000 in 2004, to $2.6 million in 2009. Unique services provided (eg IRB submissions, budgets developed, adverse events reported, etc.) are tracked, and have grown from 933 in 2006, to 5,494 in 2008, with the bulk of the increase due to safety report centralization. The growth of the resource has been orchestrated to improve efficiencies and research quality. We will continue to adjust the resource's organization and services to support our clinical research enterprise.
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