July 16, 2007
HMO Cancer Research Network funded at $20 million
National collaboration focuses on prevention, treatment, and health literacy
Seattle—The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has awarded a multi-site, cooperative grant of more than $20.2 million to the HMO Cancer Research Network (CRN). This will enable the Network to continue its research activities for another five years. The CRN has been hailed as a model of collaboration among research institutions.
Group Health Center for Health Studies will keep providing scientific and administrative leadership for the CRN. MacColl Institute Director Ed Wagner, MD, MPH, a senior investigator at the Center, serves as principal investigator of the CRN.
The grant will launch new studies related to cancer prevention and treatment. In addition, the CRN will develop research programs to study the dissemination and impact of new treatments, as well as methods to recruit more cancer patients into important clinical trials. This new phase of the CRN will also focus on mentoring and supporting young investigators and improving and standardizing automated data sources.
The work began May 1, with grant dollars distributed among 13 research centers based in integrated health care delivery organizations (plus one affiliate institution) from Massachusetts to Hawaii. Several studies involve investigators from leading comprehensive cancer centers collaborating with the Network. The first research studies to be launched under the new grant will relate to topics such as: using electronic records to improve cancer prevention; and helping patients better understand messages about cancer prevention and screening.
"The CRN's success demonstrates the important contribution that scientists and research centers can make when they are associated with large health care delivery organizations," said Dr. Wagner, who has led the CRN since its founding in 1999. "We're particularly enthusiastic about this."
This is the third round of funding to the Network from NCI. The CRN is part of the HMO Research Network, a larger consortium of health care delivery organizations that have formal recognized research capabilities and a shared commitment to public-domain research. Their research is supported by data on defined populations who receive all their health care and coverage from a single organization. The HMO Research Network also includes other multi-site research programs: the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD); the HMO Center for Education, Research and Therapeutics (CERT); and the Coordinated Clinical Studies Network (CCSN).
"Within the past year, there seems to be an almost exponential increase in appreciation of the potential of the CRN and the HMO Research Network among officials of the National Institutes of Health and other research organizations," said Martin L. Brown, PhD, chief of the NCI's Health Services and Economics Branch.
Group Health Center for Health Studies
Founded in 1947, Group Health Cooperative is a Seattle-based,
consumer-governed, nonprofit health care system that coordinates care
and coverage. For 25 years, the Group Health Center for Health Studies
has conducted research on preventing, diagnosing, and treating major
health problems. Government and private research grants provide its
main funding.