Table 1.

Research tasks and responsibilities in the current system and the proposed reengineered research enterprise

Key Research Tasks	Current System	Proposed Approach
Research design	PIs	PIs
Protocol development	PIs	PIs, with input from clinician panel
Recruitment of clinicians	PIs recruit for single studies; CTNs and PBRNs recruit for multiple studies but are often discipline- and disease-specific	ROPS acts as the source for a large pool of studies; RSOs recruit for multiple studies across disciplines and diseases
Training
General research training	Usually incorporated into study-specific training by PIs	Web-based training
Study-specific training	PIs	PIs, with option to link to web-based training
Ongoing support for clinicians and staff collecting data	Varied and dependent on available resources and capacity by PIs, CTNs, PBRNs	More consistent across studies and research sites and delivered by well-supported and incentivized RSOs
Quality assurance	PIs	Quality assurance at the site level; PIs for data
Clinician feedback	Via PIs	Via PIs, ROPS, RSOs, and protocol review panels
Use of study results	PIs via direct communication and peer-reviewed articles	ROPS to entire relevant network, not just to those who participated in the study; plus PIs via peer-reviewed articles

PI = principal investigator; CTN = clinical trial network; PBRN = practice-based research network; ROPS = registry of providers and services; RSO = research support organization.