Office of Research Operations

Research Operations is a system-wide research management office dedicated to providing experienced staff to support clinical research system-wide. We provide support from start-up to completion and presentation of research findings to associates, physicians, and students interested in conducting clinical research in the CommonSpirit Health system for projects ranging from investigator-initiated studies to privately- and publicly-funded research grants.

Office of Research Operations

Research Operations is a system-wide research management office dedicated to providing experienced staff to support clinical research system-wide. We provide support from start-up to completion and presentation of research findings to associates, physicians, and students interested in conducting clinical research in the CommonSpirit Health system for projects ranging from investigator-initiated studies to privately- and publicly-funded research grants.

Key support services

Our leadership team is comprised of a Director of Research Operations, Manager of Research Operations, Sr. Regulatory Operations Specialist, Regulatory Documentation Specialist, and a Research Grants and Contracts Specialist. We work together to provide guidance in study design, contract review, budget review, regulatory review, document preparation and IRB submission.

If you are interested in conducting a clinical trial within the CommonSpirit Health system, please contact the Director of Research Operations via phone or email.

  • Legal review of research-related contracts/agreements
  • Financial review of study budgets, as applicable
  • Medicare Coverage Analysis, as indicated
  • Regulatory preparation, and coordination of IRB submission including required training in human subject protections by all key personnel
  • Screening, recruiting, and enrolling study subjects
  • Manage subject visits
  • Perform study procedures
  • Manage subject data reporting
  • Identification and reporting of adverse events
  • Participate in audits and study monitor visits
  • Build studies in Epic linking study visits to the subject in the EHR
  • Ongoing study finance management

Research Electronic Data Capture (REDCap) is available to research clinicians throughout CommonSpirit, including health professionals within and affiliated with a CommonSpirit entity. REDCap, created by Vanderbilt University in 2014, is supported by the REDCap Consortium to primarily facilitate Institutional Review Board-approved (IRB) clinical research. 

The web application is licensed to CommonSpirit and is a go-to method for supporting both single and multi-site research studies. REDCap is utilized for building and managing online surveys and databases. The features include:

  • Secure full user authentication, user rights, data validation, secure data storage, de-identification and audit trail ability.
  • Data downloads to common statistical application (SPSS, SAS, Strata and .csv) formats. Users may also import data through Microsoft Excel.
  • Advanced features include file uploading, auto-validation, branching logic, calculated fields, signature, Dynamic Query (SQL).

There may be projects not research related where REDCap is an appropriate platform for data acquisition and management.

To request access or for more information on REDCAP, please contact our Research Operations department via phone or email.