In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Majid Afshar and Mary Ryan Baumann of the University of Wisconsin-Madison will present “A Pragmatic Randomized Controlled Trial of Ambient Artificial Intelligence to Improve Health Practitioner Well-Being.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, January 30, 2026, at 1:00 pm eastern. Afshar is an associate professor and ...

Complete materials are now available from the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory’s recent workshop, “Dissemination and Implementation in Embedded Pragmatic Trials: Science-Powered Strategies to Sustain and Spread Effective Interventions.” The full-day workshop, held on December 14 at AcademyHealth’s 18th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health, introduced concepts in the design, conduct, and ...

New qualitative findings from the GRACE trial reveal critical barriers and facilitators for incorporating complementary and integrative health interventions into routine clinical care. The study emphasizes that successful integration requires participatory approaches and significant adjustments to clinic workflows. The article was published online ahead of print in Pain Management Nursing. GRACE, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, is a ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Stephen P. Juraschek of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center will present “DASH Groceries to Stop Hypertension: Results From the GoFresh Trial.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, January 23, 2026, at 1:00 pm eastern. Stephen Juraschek is a physician investigator at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical ...

In a new episode of the Rethinking Clinical Trials Podcast, David Zaas discussed key takeaways from his recent presentation: “Landscape of Healthcare in America: Gaps and Opportunities (That Researchers Need to Hear).” Listen to the podcast. For alerts about new episodes, subscribe for free on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud. Zaas was the keynote speaker at the recent virtual workshop ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Mireille Jacobson of the University of Southern California Davis will present “Can Financial Incentives Increase Participation in a Memory Concerns Registry?” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, January 16, 2026, at 1:00 pm eastern. Jacobson is a professor at the University of Southern California Davis in ...

An economic evaluation from the BackInAction trial found that an enhanced course of acupuncture for older adults with chronic low back pain was cost-saving from both the Medicare and healthcare sector perspectives. The article appears in the upcoming issue of Spine. In a previously published report, the BackInAction research team established that acupuncture significantly improved pain and ...

The study design paper for BEST-ICU has been published online in Trials. Congratulations to the study team on reaching this important milestone for all NIH Collaboratory Trials! The BEST-ICU trial is evaluating 2 strategies grounded in behavioral economics theory and implementation science to increase adoption of the ABCDEF bundle in the intensive care unit and improve ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Ankeet S. Bhatt of the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Medical Center will present “Pragmatic Care Embedded Randomization: Insights From the KP-VACCINATE Megatrial.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, January 9, 2026, at 1:00 pm eastern. Bhatt is a cardiologist, research scientist, and assistant professor with Kaiser ...

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is requesting public input on its proposal to establish harmonized and transparent policy requirements for protecting human participant research data. Specifically, NIH proposes to: Establish policy requirements for which data should be controlled-access under NIH data sharing policies Revise the NIH Genomic Data Sharing Policy to simplify and harmonize requirements Read the ...

In a new episode of the Rethinking Clinical Trials Podcast, Shruti Gohil and Jeffrey Guy discussed key takeaways from “INtelligent Stewardship Prompts to Improve Real-time Empiric Antibiotic Selection for Patients,” also known as the INSPIRE trial. Listen to the podcast. For alerts about new episodes, subscribe for free on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud. INSPIRE, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, involved ...

The Duke University School of Nursing will convene healthcare professionals, educators, researchers, community leaders, and policymakers for a 1-day symposium dedicated to reducing rural health disparities across North Carolina through collaboration and innovation. On April 20, 2026, from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina (and virtually via livestream), participants will ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Lee H. Schwamm, Kristine Olson, and Daniella Meeker will present “Use of Ambient AI Scribes to Reduce Administrative Burden and Professional Burnout: Lessons Learned and Future Directions.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, December 19, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Schwamm is the senior vice president ...

In 2025, NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory investigators published new study designs and trial results, shared insights from program leadership, and developed innovative methods in the design, conduct, implementation, and dissemination of pragmatic clinical trials. Their work included perspectives from the Coordinating Center, best practices from the Core Working Groups, and results from the NIH Collaboratory ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory’s Community Health Improvement Core has developed a new resource on community health improvement in embedded pragmatic clinical trials (ePCTs). The Community Health Improvement in Pragmatic Clinical Trials guide includes information for research teams including: A clear definition of community health improvement in the context of ePCTs Examples of challenges to be addressed Information on ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Connor Drake and Susan Spratt will present “From Eligibility to Enrollment Without a Clinic Visit: The Eat Well Produce Prescription Trial for Patients with Diabetes at Risk of Food Insecurity.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, December 12, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Drake is a ...

The Health Care Systems Research Network (HCSRN) has extended the submission deadline for abstracts and panel proposals for its 2026 Annual Conference to January 5. This year’s conference will be held in Dallas from April 21 to 23, 2026. Information about conference registration, preconference workshops, and accommodations is also available. Early-bird registration is open through March 2. The ...

In a new episode of the Rethinking Clinical Trials Podcast, Julie Fritz of the University of Utah and Sebastian Tong of the University of Washington expanded on key takeaways from their recent Grand Rounds presentation, “Integrating the BeatPain Study With PRaCTICe, a New Network Research Hub of the CARE for Health Initiative.” Listen to the podcast. ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Leslie J. Crofford, Dana Dailey, and Kathleen Sluka will present “Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation Reduces Movement-Pain in People With Fibromyalgia: Results From FM-TIPS, a Cluster Randomized Pragmatic Trial.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, December 5, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. FM-TIPS, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, ...

New findings from FM-TIPS show that targeted community engagement methods are highly effective in increasing recruitment and enrollment, particularly among rural participants who are typically underrepresented in clinical research. The report was published online in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. FM-TIPS, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, is a cluster randomized trial examining whether adding transcutaneous electrical ...

In a single-site substudy of the PRIM-ER trial, an intervention to initiate palliative care in the emergency department did not increase the proportion of patients having goals-of-care conversations. However, when those conversations did occur, they frequently influenced patients’ care. The article was published online ahead of print in Internal and Emergency Medicine. PRIM-ER, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, ...

Materials and videocast recordings are now available from the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory’s recent workshop, “Digging Into Dilemmas of Pragmatic Clinical Trials.“ The 2-day workshop, hosted by the NIH, featured a keynote address by David Zaas, president of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, gaps and opportunities for researchers in the US healthcare system. The first day of ...

In 2 recent studies, as part of the NOHARM trial, researchers explored the perspectives of patients and nurses on the implementation of a perioperative nonpharmacologic pain care education program. One study, published in JMIR Nursing, evaluated inpatient nurses’ perceptions of barriers and facilitators to implementing the Healing After Surgery initiative. Healing After Surgery is a program ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Laura Galuchie and Zak Smith will present “Insights Informing Strategies for Optimizing the Collection of Clinical Trial Data.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, November 21, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Galuchie is a senior director of global clinical development at Merck & Co, Inc. Smith ...

Patients with chronic low back pain and other chronic overlapping pain conditions, compared with patients with low back pain alone, experienced more severe pain symptoms and higher levels of anxiety, depression, and fatigue, according to an analysis from the OPTIMUM trial. The report was published in the October issue of the European Journal of Pain. Chronic low ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory launched a new learning module video, Lessons Learned From Implementing a Pragmatic Trial Using EHR and Other Real-World Data. The video explores opportunities for turning routine clinical care recorded in the electronic health record (EHR) into real-world data for pragmatic trials. The video uses the experience of ICD-Pieces, an NIH Collaboratory ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Mark Siedner of Harvard Medical School will present “IMPACT-BP: A Community-Based Intervention for Sustainable Blood Pressure Control in Rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, November 14, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Siedner is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and ...

We are excited to add 2 new NIH Collaboratory Trials to our portfolio of innovative pragmatic clinical trials embedded in healthcare systems. CARNATION and EquiP PC are supported by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke through the Pragmatic and Implementation Studies for the Management of Pain to Reduce Opioid Prescribing (PRISM) program, a component ...

Two of the newest NIH Collaboratory Trials have begun enrollment. Congratulations to the study teams from APA-SM and iPATH for reaching this important project milestone! APA-SM is enrolling patients in a 4-week auricular point acupressure intervention for self-management of chronic pain in rural communities in South Carolina and Texas. The study will also include implementation outcomes, ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Daniel Pach and Stefanie Lysk will present “EMMA – A Remote, Decentralized Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Effectiveness of a Migraine App.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, November 7, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Pach is a senior researcher at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin with ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory will offer a full-day workshop at the 18th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health in National Harbor, Maryland. The workshop, “Dissemination & Implementation in Embedded Pragmatic Trials: Science-Powered Strategies to Sustain and Spread Effective Interventions,” will introduce concepts in the design, conduct, and implementation of ...

The NIA IMPACT Collaboratory announced a request for applications for its 2025 Demonstration Projects Grants Program. The program will fund up to 2 Demonstration Projects, each providing up to $800,000 in total direct costs over a 24-month period. The awards will support full-scale embedded pragmatic clinical trials. Projects must evaluate the effectiveness of nonpharmacological interventions embedded ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Peter Margolis, Sean C. Dowdy, and Sarah Greene will present “The LHS Shared Commitments — All Treats, No Tricks.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, October 31, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Margolis is an adjunct professor of pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory has expanded its social media presence to the Bluesky social media platform to promote research that advances the design, conduct,  dissemination, and implementation of pragmatic clinical trials. If you are active on Bluesky, we invite you to follow us for the latest news about our innovative NIH Collaboratory Trials, tools and resources from the Core ...

A new study snapshot and updated ethics and regulatory documentation are now available for the APA-SM study. A year into the project, the research team reviewed and updated the minutes of their initial consultation with the Ethics and Regulatory Core. New resources for APA-SM include: a study snapshot updated ethics and regulatory documentation APA-SM is testing a 4-week auricular ...

The Health Care Systems Research Network (HCSRN) is accepting abstract submissions and panel proposals for its 2026 Annual Conference until December 8, 2025. This year’s meeting will be held in Dallas from April 21 to 23, 2026. Information about conference registration, preconference workshops, and accommodations is also available. Early-bird registration is open through March 2. The them ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Renato Lopes of the Duke University Medical Center will present “Studying Neglected Diseases: Insights From the PARACHUTE-HF Trial.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, October 24, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Lopes is a professor of medicine in the cardiology division at Duke University Medical Center ...

In a new episode of the Rethinking Clinical Trials Podcast, Emily O’Brien of Duke University expanded on key takeaways from her recent Grand Rounds presentation, “Avoiding the Fumble: Building on a Decade of Lessons from Pragmatic Clinical Trials.” Listen to the podcast. For alerts about new episodes, subscribe for free on Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or SoundCloud. The Grand Rounds presentation ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory will hold a virtual workshop on November 4 and 5, 2025, on “Digging Into Dilemmas of Pragmatic Clinical Trials.” David Zaas, president of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, will deliver a keynote presentation describing the state of healthcare delivery in the United States and the constraints on healthcare systems that ...

A new article from the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory’s Ethics and Regulatory Core offers a comprehensive scoping review of published empirical ethics research related to pragmatic clinical trials. These trials, which are designed to assess evidence-based interventions in real-world settings, present a variety of unique ethical and regulatory challenges. The article was published online ahead of ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Charles Bailey of the University of Pennsylvania and Keith Marsolo of the Duke University School of Medicine will present “Making Effective Use of Data Infrastructure in PCORnet®.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, October 17, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Bailey is an associate professor of ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory this week published a new chapter of its Living Textbook of Pragmatic Clinical Trials. The chapter, Decentralized Pragmatic Clinical Trials, covers activities of a pragmatic trial that can occur remotely—at a location separate from an investigator’s location—such as participant engagement, recruitment, consent, study interventions and procedures, collection of patient-reported outcomes, ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Julie Fritz of the University of Utah and Sebastian Tong of the University of Washington will present “Engaging Rural Communities in Pragmatic Clinical Trials: Leveraging the CARE for Health Initiative Hubs to Enhance Enrollment for BeatPain.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, October 10, 2025, ...

A new study snapshot and updated ethics and regulatory documentation are now available for the iPATH trial. Eighteen months into the study, the research team reviewed and updated the minutes of their initial consultation with the Ethics and Regulatory Core. New resources for iPATH include: a study snapshot updated ethics and regulatory documentation iPATH, an NIH Collaboratory Trial led ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory will hold a virtual workshop on November 4 and 5, 2025, on “Digging Into Dilemmas of Pragmatic Clinical Trials.” David Zaas, president of Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist, will deliver a keynote presentation describing the state of healthcare delivery in the United States and the constraints on healthcare systems that ...

The study design paper for I CAN DO Surgical ACP has been published online in BMJ Open. Congratulations to the study team on reaching this important milestone for all NIH Collaboratory Trials! I CAN DO Surgical ACP, an NIH Collaboratory Trial, is testing a system-based approach to help older adults undergoing elective surgery engage in advance ...

In this Friday’s Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds, Elisabetta Tonet of the Azienda Ospedaliero–Universitaria di Ferrara will present “Multi-Domain Rehabilitation for Older Patients With Myocardial Infarction: The PIpELINe Trial.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, October 3, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Tonet is a cardiology consultant in the Cardiology Unit of the Azienda ...

The NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory will offer a full-day workshop at the 18th Annual Conference on the Science of Dissemination and Implementation in Health in National Harbor, Maryland. The workshop, “Dissemination & Implementation in Embedded Pragmatic Trials: Science-Powered Strategies to Sustain and Spread Effective Interventions,” will introduce concepts in the design, conduct, and implementation of ...

Community health centers serving a higher percentage of unhoused patients and patients who are best served in a language other than English had lower rates of diabetes control, hypertension control, or both, according to an analysis from the iPATH research team. The findings can inform initiatives to improve care in community health centers. The report was ...

In a special session of Rethinking Clinical Trials Grand Rounds on September 26, longtime leaders from the NIH Pragmatic Trials Collaboratory will present “Significance in Pragmatic Clinical Trials: P Values vs Decision-Maker Perspectives.” The Grand Rounds session will be held on Friday, September 26, 2025, at 1:00 pm eastern. Greg Simon is a senior investigator at the ...