ResearchMatch
ResearchMatch is a disease neutral online volunteer recruitment and engagement platform that is hosted by Vanderbilt and is intended to remove barriers to patient participation in research by partnering with researchers and advocacy groups across the research enterprise. The site is specifically designed to serve as an effective, useful and complementary recruitment tool that will help connect willing volunteers with researchers who are searching for appropriate volunteers to be placed in their research studies. ResearchMatch is funded in part by the National Center for the Advancement of Translational Science (NCATS), an office of the National Institute of Health (NIH), and is a not-for-profit activity and is free for any participating site & their researchers.
How it works:
ResearchMatch allows researchers to search for volunteers who have identified themselves as being interested in participating in research. Interested participants create a “profile” with basic health information that allows researchers to search for potential participants that meet certain criteria. If a match is identified, the potential participant can be sent details about the study opportunity and can then choose whether to provide their contact information to the researcher. This is an excellent resource for researchers looking to identify potential participants outside of usual-care settings.
To gain recruitment access, a study’s Principal Investigator (PI) and/or authorized recruitment proxy must submit sufficient evidence of having an approved IRB study (or documentation of IRB exemption). Your request will be routed to your site’s Institutional Liaison(s) who will review your request.
Conditions Connections:
Condition Connections are an additional researcher-driven functionality of ResearchMatch. These tools allow a group of researchers to collaborate with community stakeholders to develop a targeted list of inquiries based on a particular diagnoses (.i.e. Autism Spectrum Disorder). When registered ResearchMatch volunteers indicate a specified condition in their health profile, they will be invited to respond to these targeted questions thus increasing the precision and prescreening process for matching volunteers with research teams. Please contact your local liaison for a full list of existing Condition Connections or to find out more about how to create a new one.
Trial Finder:
Trial Finder is an application that provides users with a structured search option for clinical trial information published on ClinicalTrials.gov. The application helps volunteers navigate through a list of actively recruiting trials form ClinicalTrials.gov and provides them with results in a clear, actionable format. By providing volunteers with simplified search criteria, ResearchMatch helps them quickly filter through information regardless of education and clinical background.
