INDIANAPOLIS – A team led by research scientists from the Indiana University School of Medicine and Regenstrief Institute has received funding expected to total $15.5 million from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging to establish a national network structure to include more nursing home residents in clinical trials.
Even though clinical trials are critical to the development and testing of medical therapies and treatments including drugs and care models, individuals living in nursing homes are rarely included in clinical research studies.
The new five-year award will fund the development of NEXT STEPs (Nursing Home EXplanatory Clinical Trials: Supporting Transformation by Enhancing Partnerships), an innovative national nursing home clinical trials network. Researcher-clinicians from the IU School of Medicine and Regenstrief will lead the multi-institution initiative to remove barriers to nursing home resident participation in clinical trials, establishing a more inclusive approach to advancing medical science and improving human health.
Kathleen T. Unroe, M.D., MHA, M.S., of IU School of Medicine and Regenstrief, is the principal investigator of NEXT STEPs which includes research sites in nine states.