Mayo Health System and Mayo Clinic Create Practice-Based Research Network

Monday, December 10, 2007

ROCHESTER, Minn. — As part of an initiative with Mayo Clinic, Mayo Health System is bringing the opportunity to participate in medical research to local communities by creating a Practice-Based Research Network.

The Mayo Health System Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) will allow physicians to collaborate on research with colleagues outside of their practices to improve patient care and the practice of medicine. The PBRN can help Mayo Clinic, an academic medical center, better understand the health care needs in surrounding communities. The PBRN also can help local practices provide research opportunities to community physicians and their patients.

Traditionally, the majority of medical research takes place in academic medical centers such as Mayo Clinic. Typically, this research involves only a small and unique segment of the population because most people seek routine care at their local clinic. The partnership between Mayo Health System and Mayo Clinic will expand opportunities for research across nearly 70 communities served by Mayo Health System. This relationship also can help spread improvements to patient care more quickly.

"Currently, it may take up to 10 years for a research discovery to make its way into practice," says Tom Grau, M.D., chair of the Mayo Health System Research Committee. "We believe that by working together, we can shorten that time span and bring the latest in clinical research to Mayo Health System patients. The advantage of a PBRN is that it allows us to gather data more quickly from a larger population of patients. As a result, we learn ways to practice better medicine."

During the last several years, Mayo Health System and Mayo Clinic have been working together to make this research partnership a reality.

Mayo Clinic was one of the first academic medical centers to receive funding through the National Institutes of Health's (NIH) new Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program. This program was created to speed the translation of scientific discoveries into real-world medical treatments. In its grant application to the CTSA program, Mayo Clinic outlined its vision to partner with Mayo Health System in a PBRN.

"This is an exciting and important development for Mayo Health System," says Dr. Grau. "By working with Mayo Clinic, the PBRN will involve our wider community in clinical research, allow research access to underserved groups, such as rural populations, and increase the number of well-trained, community-based health practitioners within Mayo Health System who are capable of conducting clinical research."

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