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The Proceedings of the American Thoracic Society 5:412-415 (2008)
© 2008 The American Thoracic Society
doi: 10.1513/pats.200707-108ET
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NETT Coordinators

Researchers, Caregivers, or Both?

Patricia A. Jellen1, Frances L. Brogan1, Anne Marie Kuzma2, Catherine Meldrum3, Yvonne M. Meli4 and Carla L. Grabianowski2

1 New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York, New York; 2 Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 3 University of Michigan, Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and 4 The Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio

Correspondence and requests for reprints should be addressed to Patricia A. Jellen, M.S.N, Center for Chest Disease, New York Presbyterian Hospital, 622 W. 168th Street, New York, NY 10032. E-mail: jellenp{at}nyp.org

ABSTRACT

The National Emphysema Treatment Trial (NETT) required the coordinated evaluation and treatment of thousands of patients with emphysema simultaneous with data collection to evaluate the safety and efficacy of surgery versus medical treatment for emphysema. These tasks were performed by a multidisciplinary team led by the clinic coordinator at each NETT center. The clinic coordinators functioned as members of the research team as well as communicators, managers, and members of the patient care team. The clinic coordinators' ability to balance these roles was instrumental to the successful completion of NETT, as evidenced by randomization of 1,218 subjects with only 10 subjects being lost to follow-up. Striving to achieve recruitment goals and working to retain study subjects was very labor intensive. The coordinator role was complicated by the study population's severity of illness combined with the complexity of the NETT protocol. Management of the study subjects' medical condition had to be balanced with the management of a multicenter, randomized clinical trial to ensure quality data collection and protocol adherence.

Key Words: research coordinator • emphysema • lung volume reduction surgery






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