LEAP Administrative Core

Abstract The Administrative Core for the “Laboratory in Early Psychosis” Center, a.k.a. LEAP Center, will support continued activities of the currently existing Center. This involves the research consortium of first episode psychosis clinics in Massachusetts and an interdisciplinary team of leading researchers. The LEAP Center is dedicated to research in first episode psychosis, including testing an intervention strategy in our consortium of clinics in a randomized controlled trial, extensive multimodal longitudinal data collection, and prediction and comparative effectiveness research using various clinical datasets to better understand heterogeneity in patient outcomes and treatment impacts. The Administrative Core will serve the Center’s goals by facilitating regular communication, fostering synergy among disciplines, supporting training opportunities and pilot projects, disseminating information on Center activities, organizing stakeholder panels, and overseeing evaluation of the Center itself. The Core will be led by the Center Leads Drs. Öngür, Hsu, and Hernan, and supported by a Center Administrator. It will be housed in dedicated office space at McLean Hospital. The Core has four aims. First, it will oversee and coordinate all activities essential to the functioning of the Center, including maintenance of regulatory and contractual obligations, management of budgets and subcontracts, interacting with academic, state, and federal agencies, completion of reporting requirements, supporting regular communication between Center elements, and fostering and tracking collaborations. Second, the Core will oversee and coordinate governance structures including the Steering, Manuscript, Data Management and Access, Pilot Project, and Training committees within the Center. Third, it will manage the solicitation, review, funding, monitoring, and reporting of the conduct of an average of two R03-level pilot projects each year. And fourth, the Administrative Core will coordinate and manage engagement with a diverse array of stakeholders including patient and family groups, national and state policy makers, payers, as well as a panel of senior scientific experts. The Core will also support dissemination of Center activities and advances through conferences and short courses, visiting scholar series, clinical case conferences, as well as a website. Finally, the Administrative Core will track objective metrics of Center performance and convene annual meetings of the Advisory Board (composed of senior investigators within and outside of psychiatry research which will conduct assessments of Center progress and suggest refinements). Taken together, the Core activities are designed to ensure that the LEAP Center remains a unified whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.