This is an application for biweekly virtual community of practice program which uses the ECHO model. ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) is an established platform that has been used at UHN and in other centers in Ontario to train healthcare providers in remote and underserved areas. We are implementing ECHO for the first time in the world to train researchers conducting clinical trials.
Clinical trials are used to evaluate how safe and effective medications, devices or approaches to treatment are for patients. They are the highest form of evidence and a driver of evidence-based medicine and we propose to address this need, by creating a community of clinical research professionals working in a complex clinical trials environment, enabling them to share knowledge, best practices, and experiences, collaborate, and address the challenges they face.
The CoP will be delivered according to the standardized educational rubric of the ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes) model where we would be conducting a 1 hour virtual learning session, twice per month on a pre-specified key area relating to clinical research led by Canadian field experts and participants would be encouraged to bring their problems/areas of concern for discussion.