Stony Brook University Medical Center is participating in a unique collaborative partnership to help make clinical trials faster and less expensive for patients. The group has just completed Phase 1 of its work where it has been confirmed that it is feasible to develop a sophisticated, statewide clinical data process for evidence-based research in New York State.
The collaborative is called the “Partnership to Advance Clinical Electronic Research (PACeR). The group consists of 13 New York academic medical centers, clinical research firms, pharmaceutical companies, healthcare information technology firms, and patient advocacy groups.
By identifying potential candidates for clinical trials more efficiently and by enhancing data collection and the modeling of clinical protocols, testing can occur more quickly resulting in therapies being available to patients sooner.
The group also points to significant benefits for major healthcare stakeholders including academic medical centers, researchers, health information technology companies, regulators, public and private initiatives, and the State of New York.
PACeR has published a white paper describing the results as well as its plans for Phase 2 of the project. It is available at www.pacerhealth.org.
Academic medical centers participating in the initiative include the three hospitals in the State University of New York (SUNY) system that includes Stony Brook University Medical Center, SUNY Upstate University Hospital, and SUNY Downstate Medical Center.
PACeR is sponsored by the Healthcare Association of New York (HANYS) with the Hastings Center and Legal Action Center participating as a patient advocacy group. Clinical research pharmaceutical and health information technology firms participating include Bayer Healthcare, Pharmaceutical, F. Hoffman-LaRoche, Johnson and Johnson, Merck Company, Oracle, Pfizer, and Quintiles.
Heath Information Technology companies will benefit since PACeR will develop functional specifications for software to meet the needs of scientific, evidence-based research, in addition to doing observational research and financial analysis.
The group is encouraging other organizations to join the collaborative for Phase 2 to include physician professional societies, community hospitals, device manufacturers, EMR vendors, disease societies, and others. Phase 2 will demonstrate the capability to provide modeling of clinical protocols across many institutions.
