Niagara Health gets $300K in funding for new clinical research trials

Niagara Health has received $300,000 in health-care funding to support a new role that directly benefits local patients.

Dr. Jennifer LY Tsang from the Niagara Health Knowledge Institute (NHKI) says the new role is called clinical trials research coordinator. Its purpose is to add more clinical trial programs for neurology, hematology and transfusion medicine in the region.

“This will allow us to deliver better access to a variety of clinical trials without the need for those patients to travel to Hamilton or Toronto,” Tsang says.

Niagara Health was chosen out of 65 community hospitals invited to apply for funding.

Tsang says that 90 per cent of hospitals in Canada are in smaller rural areas, which never get the chance to be part of clinical trials.

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“If you don’t have research in community hospitals, you’re creating health-care inequity,” she says.

The clinical trials research coordinator is responsible for enrolling eligible patients for studies, collecting and validating clinical data, monitoring participants and ensuring their safety.

Tsang says Niagara Health is in the process of enrolling its first patient in its first neurology study.

The hospital is joining 17 other countries in this study, which involves 1,200 participants.

The team conducting this study will select which clinical trials they want to participate in by late summer or early fall.