Delaware Nemours Children's Health Site for the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network

The overall mission of the Nemours Children’s Health Delaware Site for the IDeA States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network (DE-ISPCTN site) is to facilitate implementation of well-designed pediatric clinical trials and assure the participation of all children in these clinical trials. To achieve this mission, the DE-ISPCTN will continue to strengthen pediatric clinical trial capacity within the IDeA state of Delaware and further engage with community partners to enhance the impact of clinical trials for children, families, and the communities they live in. The opportunity and the potential impact of pediatric clinical advances are significant in Delaware, whose population serves as a demographic microcosm of the country and whose children are greatly affected by the five ECHO health outcomes. In this renewal application, we demonstrate our success during the last two cycles of the ISPCTN in collaborating on multicenter clinical trials, leading health outcomes, and professional development working groups, and conducting research that addresses strategic health outcomes. We detail how the DE-ISPCTN site will continue to harness key resources in the next cycle of the ISPCTN to achieve its goals, including (1) being the only children’s hospital in Delaware, with a statewide integrated network of primary care clinics, (2) reaching a large population of children including many from groups at higher risk for poor health outcomes, (3) renowned marketing and informatics capabilities, (4) robust programs to meaningfully engage communities and translate research findings into practice and policy, (5) strong clinical research infrastructure and a highly experienced interdisciplinary clinical research team, and (6) a multi-tiered approach for training early-stage investigators and clinician scientists in rigorous clinical trial methodology. The DE-ISPCTN site will also continue to synergize with robust DE IDeA state resources, partner with the Jefferson Clinical Research Institute at Thomas Jefferson University, collaborate with Christiana Care (the major obstetric hospital in Delaware, responsible for over 80% of deliveries in the state), and work closely with the ISPCTN Data Coordinating and Operation Center and NIH. The expertise and infrastructure of the DE-ISPCTN site will promote innovative and impactful clinical trial research to improve the health of all children in Delaware.