The OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium, a robust statewide research infrastructure led by ICHP director Elizabeth Shenkman, Ph.D., and David R. Nelson, M.D., through the UF Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI), was recently highlighted in Explore, a magazine produced by the UF Office of Research. The article, “Team Florida: UF-led collaborations are transforming the way science becomes medicine,” provides an overview of the CSTI’s initiatives to change the way Florida and the nation move toward new medical advances. One of those initiatives is the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium.
Started in 2012 under the leadership of Nelson, director of the CTSI, and Shenkman, director of the Institute for Child Health policy and co-director of the CTSI, the consortium is now comprised of 22 hospitals, 1,240 medical practices, and more than 4,000 physicians providing care for 40 percent of Florida residents. OneFlorida’s consortium partners include the University of Florida and UF Health, Florida State University and the Regional Campus Practice Partners, the University of Miami and the University of Miami Health System, the Orlando Health System, Florida Hospital, Tallahassee Memorial HealthCare, Bond Community Health Center, Inc., Miami Children’s Health System, WellFlorida Council, Health Choice Network, DuchenneConnect, and Phelan-McDermid Syndrome Data Network.
As of April 2016, The OneFlorida Data Trust contained de-identified health data representing some 10 million patients across Florida, including 3.5 million children. The data will facilitate observational research and cohort discovery statewide.
“The OneFlorida Data Trust serves as a powerful research tool, enabling clinicians and researchers to design rigorous, high-quality clinical trials that involve diverse groups of people in real-world settings, including minorities that historically have been under-represented in clinical research,” Shenkman said.
In 2015, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) granted the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium a $7.9 million funding award to support patient-centered health care research throughout Florida and the country. The funding award designates the OneFlorida Clinical Research Consortium as one of only 13 clinical data research networks within the larger collaborative initiative called the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, or PCORnet.
PCORnet will enable researchers nationwide to conduct clinical research more quickly and less expensively than is now possible and will ensure that research focuses on the most important outcomes to patients. Shenkman is the lead co-principal investigator for the grant, alongside William Hogan, M.D., M.S., director of Informatics for the OneFlorida Network and director of Biomedical Informatics at the CTSI. To read more about the grant, click here.
In addition, Shenkman was appointed to co-chair PCORI’s Pediatrics Collaborative Research Group with Christopher Forrest, M.D., Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania. The newly formed group will help PCORI set national priorities for pediatric research using PCORnet. Read more about Shenkman’s appointment to the collaborative research group here.