We are living in what should be the most productive time in history for medical research. Greater numbers of researchers, with better funding than ever, have in recent years been directed to the discovery of new diagnostic tools, pharmaceutical therapies, and medical devices. As healthcare information technology investment has risen, access to clinical information has improved significantly. Translational research strategies are being adopted to speed bench science to bedside therapeutics.
Yet, clinical research productivity in the United States is facing a crisis:
- According to this report, academic medical centers (AMCs) have made a tremendous investment in their research organisations and the physicians employed in them. Genomics and related research strategies, although they are vital and represent opportunities for future value and reduced costs, have increased costs because they entail investment in novel technologies. Federal funding for basic research has leveled off for four consecutive years, which has increased competition among applicants from research institutions and AMCs for grants.
- Clinical trials must be combined with clinical care. However, physicians sometimes find the additional work involved to be cumbersome. Moreover, many physicians have neither research training nor ready access to an appropriate support infrastructure. As a result, physicians may decline to participate in clinical trials, and those who do are often reluctant to repeat the experience.
- Genomic and related data currently trickles into electronic medical records (EMRs). Translational research could turn this trickle into a flood, resulting in information management demands that research organisations are unable to manage.
This report investigates the challenges of sharing electronic information across the entire continuum of medical research, from academic medical centers, through to the research labs of pharmaceutical and life-sciences companies and ultimately with the regulatory agencies that oversee safety and efficacy.
