Collaboration expands access to pragmatic trials training
HDRN Canada’s Pragmatic Trials Training Program has teamed up with CANTRAIN to advance the quality and capacity of the Canadian clinical trials workforce. Launched last summer, the two-year, pan-Canadian program helps health researchers, post-doctoral trainees and highly qualified personnel gain the skills and experience needed to design and implement high quality pragmatic trials. Led by HDRN Canada Lead Dr. Amit Garg, its goal is to create a pipeline of researchers who can efficiently evaluate interventions, from drugs to vaccines to health technologies.
CANTRAIN is an online platform, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, that promotes modular and online training. As part of the new collaboration, CANTRAIN has shared educational materials from HDRN Canada’s Pragmatic Trials Training Program, such as exemplar pragmatic trial modules, on its website for wider amplification and dissemination. The nine-part mini series includes a range of pragmatic clinical trial components, from understanding the basics of trial design to trial implementation, statistical analysis, quality control and oversight and other trial components.
We designed this program to be publicly accessible because we want as many people as possible to learn about pragmatic clinical trials. ~ Dr. Amit Garg
Broadly disseminating high quality learning materials produced under HDRN Canada’s Pragmatic Trials Training Program will allow more health researchers to benefit from this valuable knowledge. “We designed this program to be publicly accessible because we want as many people as possible to learn about pragmatic clinical trials,” said Dr. Garg, who also serves as Associate Dean, Clinical Research in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University. “Done well, pragmatic clinical trials can yield valid and highly generalizable results – faster than traditional trials and at a fraction of the cost. This is a critical advantage for strengthening Canada’s health care response to current and future health challenges.”
Pragmatic trials are a key component of multi-regional research, noted Dr. Kim McGrail, CEO and Scientific Director of HDRN Canada. “Pragmatic trials are a great addition to research methods and many can take advantage of routinely collected health data, which helps make them fast and efficient,” she said. “We are pleased to partner with CANTRAIN on sharing these training materials because we want them to be available as widely as possible.”
HDRN Canada’s Pragmatic Trials Training Program is funded by CIHR and coordinated by the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University.