Research and technology for better health

The Health Research Board is making major investments in Ireland’s clinical research capacity.

“A vibrant clinical research system is necessary for a high-performing health service, and best international practice clearly demonstrates that embedding research at the core of services leads to better patient outcomes,” says the HRB’s outgoing Chief Executive, Enda Connolly.

Central to this is the ready availability of key research infrastructures and technologies, which are essential to underpin the delivery of new and enhanced treatments and therapies as well as creating capacity for Irish Hospitals to absorb innovative approaches to care.

The HRB has pursued a very deliberate and strategic approach to developing Ireland’s clinical research infrastructure that will support a strong clinical research ecosystem into the future.

For example, the HRB is funding three Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs), which are co-located on hospital grounds at St James’s in Dublin, the Mercy Hospital in Cork, and Galway University Hospital.

Each CRF provides the clinical space, IT infrastructure, support personnel and equipment to conduct high-quality patient-oriented research. These facilities enable health researchers to collaborate and work with other national and international centres of excellence. In 2012 alone, there were 126 clinical studies underway across the CRFs. The next step in the evolution of the Ireland’s clinical research infrastructure will be to facilitate multi-site clinical trials through a national co-ordinating framework for the HRB-funded CRFs and three other Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs) located at Beaumont, the Mater and St Vincent’s hospitals. This National Clinical Research Framework (NCRF) will create a single point of contact and provide integrated access to services for academia, the health system and industry. The need for this coordination was identified in the National Research Prioritisation Exercise, and the HRB was asked to deliver it. The HRB has been working closely with the Directors of the CRFs and CRCs and Enterprise Ireland to devise the best model for such cooperation, and is now undertaking the first steps to implement this model with the key stakeholders.

“Our infrastructure investments support a wide range of research activities. Each year the HRB will have about 400 active research projects, many of which make use of the infrastructures we are putting in place,” explains Dr Anne Cody, Head of Clinical and Applied Biomedical Research at the HRB.

“For example, the HRB Centre for Advanced Medical Imaging (CAMI) provides state of the art Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) capabilities dedicated to research. Located beside the Wellcome Trust-HRB Clinical Research Facility at St James’s Hospital, the facility attracts academics and clinicians from across the country to conduct national imaging studies. As the Clinical Research Facilities expand their studies, it is anticipated that CAMI could act as a national imaging anchor for Irish research using MRI. Epilepsy, prostate cancer and breast cancer patients are just some of the groups benefiting from the research studies currently underway at CAMI.

“People and good research projects are essential to the ongoing success of infrastructure investments,” says Connolly. “The HRB is committed to be at the forefront of developing a coordinated health research environment in which people, programmes, infrastructures and technology combine to deliver improvements in people’s health, and the health service, as well as supporting the wider economy.”

­ Health Research Board

73 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2

Tel: 01 2345000 www.hrb.ie