CWRU earns grant for Collaborative Ohio Inquiry Network to improve health care research

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) recently awarded Case Western Reserve University a grant to create one of eight Primary Care Practice-Based Research and Learning Centers in the country. The Collaborative Ohio Inquiry Networks (COIN) will bring together many of Ohio’s Practice-Based Research Networks (PBRNs), supported by Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortiums from Case Western Reserve University, The Ohio State University and University of Cincinnati, along with Northeast Ohio Medical University.

Principal investigator and director James Werner, director of Case Western Reserve’s Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative Practice Based Research Network Share Resource Core, will lead the new statewide establishment. PBRNs—groups of heath care practices affiliated for the purpose of generating new knowledge relevant to improving health and health care in real world settings—are a strong component of the Clinical and Translational Science Collaborative (CTSC) at Case Western Reserve University and other CTSAs across the country.

COIN will work in collaboration with: The Research Association of Practices (RAP), Safety Net Providers’ Strategic Alliance (SNPSA), Cleveland Clinic Ambulatory Research Network (CLAReN), Rainbow Office-Based Clinical Research Network (RRC), Better Health Greater Cleveland (BHGC), Ohio State University Primary Care PBRN (OSU-PCPBRN), Cincinnati Area Research Group (CARinG Network), Cincinnati Pediatric Research Group (CPRG) and The Northeast Ohio Network (NEON). Together these institutions have conducted 144 externally funded and 60 internally funded studies, totaling more than $47 million.

With this new opportunity, COIN will work to increase the PBRN’s research and development capacity, and aid in the translation of the research into real-world practice. By leveraging common resources, the newly funded AHRQ centers are expected to improve productivity and produce results that are more substantial than they would as separate PBRNs.

To learn more about the initiative, click here.