Developing a toolkit for building a community hospital clinical research program

Although health research in Canada is primarily conducted in academic hospitals, most patients receive their care in community hospitals. The benefits of increasing research capacity in community hospitals include improved study recruitment, increased generalizability of results, broader patient access to novel therapies, better patient outcomes, enhanced staff satisfaction, and improved organizational efficiency. Nevertheless, building research programs in community hospitals remains challenging because of a lack of support and expertise. To address this gap, we developed a toolkit to help community hospital professionals build and sustain their community hospital research programs.

The toolkit was developed by the Canadian Community Intensive Care Unit Research Network (CCIRNet), a group of clinician-researchers and research staff from community hospitals across Canada who have experience building community hospital research programs. Feedback from a concurrent qualitative study of Canadian community critical care professionals informed the toolkit’s design.

The CCIRNet toolkit outlines five stages of community hospital clinical research program development: 1) building a research team and gaining support, 2) developing a new research program, 3) choosing a first research study, 4) getting the study up and running, and 5) sustaining a research program. Feedback from qualitative interviews emphasized the need for a step-by-step approach, frequently asked questions, and essential resources. Accordingly, each stage is structured in a question-and-answer format and includes relevant resources for each section.

The CCIRNet toolkit is a practical resource for establishing research programs in community hospitals. The toolkit may increase research participation and support clinical research capacity building in community hospitals.