March 2020
Help shape adaptable resources and take part in developing tools for research on COVID19 - join a crowd-sourcing workshop
Open Community for Implementing Research
There are many unknowns that need addressing during this outbreak and these require clinical trials and observational studies to be planned and ready for implementation wherever there are cases. This needs protocols, the associated tools, regulatory approvals, operating procedures - and also trained teams ready to run these studies.
There are questions that need asking in varied settings, such as understanding the influence of co-morbidities and co-infection, variation in transmission and clinical presentations, as well as assessing vaccines, therapeutic and supportive care interventions in different populations and care settings.
Taking part in research and benefiting from research findings should be equitable across the globe. Here the aim is to work together to support research everywhere, together, now.
This open community can establish what support, guidance and tools are needed for teams to implement the observational disease characterisation protocol and Master Therapeutic Evaluation protocol that are already available (WHO and ISARIC).
These protocols are recommended as they are designed by groups of international experts, use standard terms and outcome measures so that maximum benefit can be gained from the data. These are a good start for adapting to your questions and what you want to assess and measure. Adaptation will be needed for many settings and questions and so as a community we can discuss intervention, practical and most appropriate outcome measures and patient populations. Research teams might also not have much previous experience in research, so as a community we can work to develop tools, guidance and advice to support research being undertaken everywhere.
You are invited to attend a virtual workshop to discuss how this could be achieved in an open community of practice to ‘crowd source’ the know-how needed to have a set of adaptable resources so that all teams can implement clinical trials and observational studies in their healthcare specific setting and questions.
If you are interested in joining this open global research community and attending this workshop please register your interest here. We hope to hold this workshop within the next few days.