Clinical Trials
Emergency Care Research Clinical Trials
The OHSU Center for Policy and Research in Emergency Medicine participates in, and has participated in, a number of clinical trial networks and conducted many clinical research studies. A clinical trial is a study conducted during the course of medical care. In both pre-hospital emergencies and emergency departments, we research many different kinds of medical conditions affecting people of all ages (infants, children, and adults), such as seizures, brain injuries, heart conditions, breathing issues, blood disorders, fevers, fainting, mental health issues and cardiac arrests.
Studies can involve surveys where we ask patients questions about their emergency medical issue, interventions where a study drug, study device, or additional medical procedure is conducted; or observational data may be collected about the visit and outcome of the visit(s).
In most studies, research staff will come discuss study participation with the patient being included in the study. In some emergencies, it is critical for emergency care providers to act quickly, and there is not time to talk to the patient, or the patient is not able to make decisions (for example when a person is unconscious). In studies where it is critical to intervene right away, we work under a set of rules known as "Exception From Informed Consent" (EFIC). In these cases the intervention is performed before the research team talks to the patient or their family. To learn more about EFIC research please click here
Links to some of our current projects and networks are available on the left. Information on past studies and networks are available below.
Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium
What Is ROC?
The Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium (ROC) was created to learn which treatments work when people have a cardiac arrest or severe injury. The ROC consisted of ten sites and a coordinating center. The ROC investigators worked with Emergency Medical Services (EMS) systems and local hospitals at each site to do these studies. Treatments studied included promising resuscitation drugs, tools, and techniques.
The ROC Investigators conducted studies in which people who qualify receive either the currently accepted treatment or a new treatment assigned by chance (that is, in a manner like a coin toss). The trials are designed to test promising new treatments so that EMS providers can use those treatments most likely to benefit the public. OHSU participated in this network from it's inception in 2004 until it's final trial concluded in 2019.
Overview
The Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT) Network was an NIH-funded network dedicated to neurologic emergency care research studies. NETT was funded from 2012-2018, however a few NETT trials had ongoing research activity after the official end date. The final active study, ESETT concluded in March of 2020.
The NETT was made up of 17 "Hub" institutions nationwide, each having at least three "Spoke" hospitals. The NETT Network was an interdisciplinary, including, but not limited to, emergency physicians, neurologists, and neurosurgeons.
OHSU was a primary hub site for NETT. As a hub site, OHSU coordinated study participation at multiple local and regional sites and participated in all NETT research trials. These trials study many different kinds of neurologic issues, such as traumatic brain injury, stroke, or seizure.
Dr. Craig Warden, Department of Emergency Medicine, was the Principal Investigator (PI) of the OHSU hub network from 2012-2019. Dr. Mohamud Daya was the PI from 2019-2020. Jennifer Cook was the hub project manager.