About us
The STAR CRN, a member of PCORnet – the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network, encompasses ten health systems servicing three main regions: 1) Vanderbilt University Medical Center(VUMC), 2) the Vanderbilt Health Affiliated Network (VHAN), 3) Meharry Medical College (MMC), 4) Duke University Health System, 5) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 6) Wake Forest Baptist Health, 7) Health Sciences of South Carolina, 8) Mayo Clinic, headquartered in Minnesota. 9) Essentia Health, and 10) Standford University School of Medicine. With data on over 15 million patients, the STAR CRN network consists of academic health centers, community hospitals and a range of outpatient practices including primary care, specialty practices and safety net facilities that serve diverse populations. Through this network, we have access to a broad array of clinical data, informatics tools, patients, providers, and systems to address an array of research questions. The objective of our CRN is to robustly support comparative effectiveness studies, pragmatic clinical trials, health system innovation, and the other research needs of our stakeholders and partners.
The STAR Stakeholder Engagement Team ( SET) Leads implementation of the people-centered engagement plan; identify and engages a variety of stakeholders (patients, caregivers, clinicians). This group is comprised of members faculty and staff managing stakeholder engagement at CRN-level, site stakeholder engagement reps (i.e., staff or faculty) and designated patient representatives across the institutions in STAR-CRN . They closely collaborate with Stakeholder Advisory Council members and serve to facilitate implementation of stakeholder engagement.
The STAR Stakeholder Advisory Council (SAC), consists of patients, community members, and clinicians who help prioritize research opportunities and review all incoming studies to ascertain engagement of patients. Input from stakeholders is used to inform the research design, implementation, analysis, dissemination and/or priority setting. The SAC review of research products entails a quantitative, objective and validated measure of the Person Centeredness of Research ( PCoR) score. This measurement tool is the first of its kind and available to other Networks within STAR for measuring.
Testimonials
The infrastructure provided by the STAR CRN supported multiple aspects of my research. We were able to obtain feasibility counts, including proportions of underrepresented groups, and to connect with diverse clinics from a wide geographical area who were all interested in research. Throughout our trial, the STAR CRN infrastructure will enable us to leverage health record data for recruitment, data collection, and retention. This will support our ability to engage more underrepresented groups in research to advance equity and learning.
Vanderbilt’s success in enrolling patients in the ADAPTABLE trial has been a true team effort. Our success has only been possible because of the invaluable research infrastructure that has been built, maintained, and continually improved here in the STAR CRN. We have shown the country what is possible when multi-disciplinary experts collaborate to identify, contact, and enroll patients in pragmatic clinical research.
My twenty-eight years of working on a local and national level of health advocacy have allowed me to participate in the work of program design and implementation, primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, health literacy, policy development, and community and patient engagement. I have had the opportunity to work with the PCORI foundational leadership and the PCORnet team from its inception some ten years or more. I have worked as a community co-investigator and patient partner with the STAR CRN. My work is rewarding to me personally and beneficial in the ways I serve my community. It is with great pleasure and delight that I offer my support and endorsement of the work of the STAR-CRN.
Examples of Our Published work
How should I cite the STAR CRN in publications and presentations?
For the time period before 6.30.2019: “The STAR CRN, formerly Mid-South CDRN was initiated and funded by Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) through the contract CDRN-1306-04869 , the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research with grant support from (UL1TR002243 from NCATS/NIH), and institutional funding.”
For the time period 12.1.2018-12.31.2019: “The STAR CRN was initiated and funded by People-Centered Research Foundation (PCRF) through the contract PCRF RFA 2017-12-05, the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research with grant support from (UL1TR002243 from NCATS/NIH), and institutional funding.”
For the time period 1.1.20 and going forward: “The STAR CRN was initiated and funded by Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) through the contract RI-CRN-2020-009, the Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical and Translational Research with grant support from (UL1TR002243 from NCATS/NIH), and institutional funding.”