Services

Our Scientific Hub

We are Denver Health’s scientific hub and a center for health research. Our learning health system research is rigorous, investigator-initiated and patient-centered. Our core value is to harness our team’s collective expertise to foster a collaborative community of inclusive and multidisciplinary clinical research.

This is the way we make research our superpower. Our research and evaluations progressively improve health care delivery.
 

Learning Health System Core

Objective

Provide expertise on rigorous pragmatic design and evaluation for research and quality improvement with a goal of improving care for patients and promoting health equity at Denver Health.

Tactics

• Provide expertise on pragmatic design, data collection methodology, rigorous evaluation, and dissemination of findings for research and quality improvement programs.
• Conduct rigorous data analyses for research and quality improvement projects.
• Employ innovative methods and approaches to recognize and address health inequities and social determinants of health.
• Provide expertise on including patient and community voice in evaluation efforts.
• Support interpretation of data to inform clinical quality improvement and operations.
   

Research Methods Core

Objective

Foster an active learning community through ongoing seminars, research methods workshops, mentoring and community engagement. The Research Methods Core aims to advance knowledge, highlight current evidence, and facilitate internal and external collaborations for research and quality improvement. 

Tactics

• Build awareness of Denver Health research activities and external research findings through research seminars and other activities.
• Promote research and quality improvement methodological skill development through in-depth workshops, training, and facilitation of mentorship.
• Promote community voice and input in research and quality improvement activities through a Community Advisory Panel.

Research Operations manages Denver Health’s practices and processes that support and optimize research here at Denver Health. We aim to support research operations by developing competent and compliant research personnel, as well as research tools and support structures to streamline and improve the efficiency of research efforts. With the shared purpose of fulfilling the organization’s learning health and research mission, and with the optimal goal of letting our researchers focus on the actual research, we provide timely and excellent operational and regulatory services to basic, translational and clinical research programs.

Services Provided By Research Operations

Shared Staffing Services

Shared Staffing Services provides a pool of experienced study staff to assist with clinical research study start-up, implementation, and closeout. This resource alleviates the administrative burden associated with training and managing research staff and allows investigators to spend more time focusing on their research.

We provide our shared services staff members and the entire Denver Health research community with clear promotional pathways and professional development opportunities with the aim of retaining talented research staff and creating a model that is customer-service and metric driven.

Core Research Labs Services

Denver Health Core Research Laboratories at Denver Health are located at the main campus and comprised of over 12,245 square feet, providing research teams will ample laboratory space that is customizable to study needs (fully equipped for molecular and cellular biology research). Research staff are IATA certified with years of experience with acquisition and shipping of biological specimens for multi-center studies. Labs are equipped with standard features and equipment, fume hoods, cell culture hood, flammables cabinets, PCR machines, incubators, spectrophotometer, microcentrifuges, power supplies, -80°C Freezers, -20C freezers, electrophoresis / blotting systems, pipettes, pH meters, digital scales, heating blocks, hot plates, and upright and inverted stage microscopes two with digital image capture capability. Rotating Hybridization oven, UV cross-linker, etc. Lab spaces are regularly audited to ensure staff safety and compliance. 

Clinical Trials Services

The Clinical Trials Services (CTS) team facilitates the conduct of high-quality clinical trials by providing a centralized infrastructure to enhance patient safety, promote quality research, and provide administrative, fiscal, and regulatory support. The CTS provides dedicated clinical research support to clinical investigators and sponsors in a timely, efficient, and customer-friendly manner, while supporting the safe and ethical conduct of clinical research and enhancing the quality of the research experience for study participants.

Policy development, tools, resources and tip sheets are developed in collaboration with the Clinical Trials Advisory Panel (CTAP). CTAP is a representative group of research staff across DH working on clinical trials, facilitating monitor visits, and preparing for audits.

Research Data Captures Services

Research operations provides study research teams with a variety of data capture platforms and administrative support.

REDCap
REDCap (Research Electronic Data Capture) is a secure, web-based application designed exclusively to support data capture for research studies. REDCap allows you to build and manage online surveys and databases. Data are securely stored at Denver Health through this easy-to-use tool.

Qualtrics
Qualtrics is an online survey software that can be used to collect and analyze survey data, to integrate data with SPSS, Excel, and other formats, and to report individual and aggregate responses. Qualtrics allows one to design simple or complex surveys, provides built-in predictive intelligence and statistical analysis, and integrates with other existing systems like Tableau, Slack, etc.

Research Feasibility Services

Our research operations team manages the TriNetX platform to help investigators determine research feasibility.

Publication Tracking

Our research operations team manages publication tracking through Orcid (Open Researcher and Contributor ID). ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a platform that provides a unique identifier (PID) for individuals to use as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities.

Library Access

Our research operations team manages library access for DH researchers.

MEDLINE Complete
Denver Health employees have access to MEDLINE Complete. This platform provides full text coverage dating back to 1949 for 1,300+ journals covering medicine, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the healthcare system, pre-clinical sciences, and more. MEDLINE provides the ability to search citations from 5,200+ biomedical journals, and indexing with the US National Library of Medicine's Subject Headings (MeSH).

Other Resources

• The Cochrane Library
• Free Medical Journals Online
• Free Medical Books Online
• Google Scholar
• PubMed
• UpToDate

We are Denver Heath’s administrative hub providing the administrative, financial and regulatory compliance capacity necessary to manage Denver Health’s research portfolio of approximately $400 million in active grants.

We connect research administration and researcher teams through the application of Lean management principles, which means we apply a systems-focused approach to process improvement and put the investigator experience at the core of continuous improvement for all aspects of our clinical trials.

We ensure comprehensive research and grant compliance in clinical trials while proactively focusing on reducing process waste in all aspects of grant and contracts administration.

Contact us at: sparo@dhha.org and read our PHS compliant Conflicts of Interest policy here.