About NIH Collaboratory

About NIH Collaboratory

Our Mission: Strengthen the national capacity to implement cost-effective large-scale research studies that engage healthcare delivery organizations as research partners.

The Problem:

Addressing issues of major public health importance requires better evidence gathered faster and more efficiently

Our Mission:

Strengthen the national capacity to implement cost-effective, large-scale research studies that engage health care delivery organizations as research partners

Our Vision:

Transform clinical research by integrating high-quality pragmatic clinical trials with routine patient care

To accomplish this vision, the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory plans to:

  • Create a new infrastructure for collaborative research with healthcare systems partners
  • Generate reliable evidence with real-world data
  • Improve the cost-effectiveness and efficiency of clinical trials
  • Support the conduct of large-scale, high-impact, innovative studies
The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory Goal is to Improve care by ensuring healthcare providers and patients have the best clinical evidece on which to base care decisions. Our trials are innovative, large scale, high impact, cost effective, and efficient.

What We Do

  • Support the design and rapid execution of pragmatic clinical trial NIH Collaboratory Trials that address questions of major public health importance and engage healthcare delivery systems in research partnerships.
  • Help to establish best practices and provide proof of concept for innovative designs in pragmatic clinical research.
  • Provide technical support and pragmatic trial expertise for Collaboratory trials and initiatives via 7 Core Working Groups, each focused on a specific topic.
  • Produce data, tools, and resources that are made available to the greater research community to promote partnerships with healthcare systems and propel a transformation in how clinical research is conducted.
  • Build upon and contribute to the work of several organizations engaged in related efforts, including the National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) and other stakeholder organizations.
  • Disseminate new knowledge widely, including through the Collaboratory’s Knowledge Repository, Living Textbook, and Grand Rounds.
  • Train a new generation of investigators in pragmatic clinical trial methods.

450,000 opioid overdose deaths

in the United States from 1999-2018 (CDC)

Addressing the Opioid Crisis

In 2019, the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory began serving as the Resource Coordinating Center for a group of large-scale embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs) supported by the Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM), a program of NIH’s Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative (NIH HEAL Initiative).

The PRISM trials will determine the effectiveness of multiple non-opioid interventions for treating pain and assess the impact of implementing interventions or guidelines to improve pain management and reduce reliance on opioids.

Program Structure

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory includes centralized operational support from a Coordinating Canter and Core Working Groups. Several oversight bodies guide the program and evaluate its progress. The NIH Collaboratory began as an NIH Common Fund-initiated program. Starting in 2017, individual NIH institutes and centers also began providing funding for NIH Collaboratory Trials and the Coordinating Center. Funding from the NIH HEAL Initiative was added in 2019. View more details on our funding page.

Updated Collab Diagram

NIH Leadership and Governance

Helene Langevin, MD, CM
Director
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

David Shurtleff, PhD 
Deputy Director
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

Richard Hodes, MD
Director
National Institute on Aging (NIA)

Robin Boineau, MD, MA 
Director of the Office of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs (OCRA)
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
NIH Project Scientist for the program

Wendy Weber, ND, PhD, MPH
Branch Chief for Clinical Research
National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)
NIH Project Officer for the program

NIH Implementation Team

The NIH Implementation Team includes NIH staff who support individual NIH Collaboratory Trials.

Coordinating Center

The Coordinating Center for the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory comprises six member institutions that together provide leadership, organize the work of the program, and offer technical expertise: