Improving access to quality clinical trials.
Clinical Trials Consortium
MICYRN’s Clinical Trials Consortium will enhance Canadian maternal-child health through increased access to high-quality clinical trials supported by an efficient, safe, and family-centered national infrastructure. It is working to develop a collaborative national infrastructure in Canada to support clinical investigations, with an emphasis on multicentre clinical trials. The consortium will identify common processes that could benefit from being harmonized across institutions, and develop tactical approaches to realize shared efficiencies and best practices.
Clinical Trial Navigators
Through a secondment model, MICYRN has acquired clinical trials navigators from different institutions across Canada. The CT navigators play a critical role in ensuring the Network is able to build child- and family-centric research and education capabilities. The navigators support the Clinical Trials Consortium in streamlining clinical trial processes and systems, thus enhancing the quality and efficiency of regulated and non-regulated trials.
Quality Improvement
The Quality Improvement and Performance Metrics initiative was established to understand the underlying sources of inefficiencies in the clinical trials process, and where improvements have the potential to increase the timeliness, feasibility, and number of academic- and industry-sponsored pediatric clinical trials in Canada. MICYRN connected with each of the child health centres individually to create a list of indicators for quality improvement and performance measurement.
Databases and Catalogues
Sharing data is vital in healthcare research. It ensures researchers are not constantly repeating the work of others, creates opportunities for meta analysis, and effectively build upon existing work. Quick and easy access to information also improves efficiencies in research. To assist in this, MICYRN catalogues intelligence on leading experts, studies, and site readiness, providing investigators and industry with quick access to needed information.
Here you can also view the Catalogue of Child, Maternal and Family COVID-19 Studies in Canada—an ongoing national resource.
Lawyer Network
MICYRN’s Network of Lawyers is working to streamline regulations, removing barriers to multi-jurisdictional trials. This is a significant piece of work that will improve recruitment, time to set up, and other factors for clinical trial success.
Young Persons’ Advisory Group
MICYRN facilitates a YPAG for research to provide advice to investigators on aspects associated with research studies on this cohort. Youth provide input on a number of components, including the design of patient information leaflets; opinions about study websites; format of research ethics consent forms; establishment of participant registries; and, input into study protocols and definition of outcome measures