UMHealthResearch.org (UMHR) is designed to go above and beyond a typical participant recruitment platform because it allows for study use both ways: volunteers (both healthy and with specific medical conditions) and researchers can search for studies and find matches based on their interests and needs.
This unique participant recruitment site has received national recognition and attention across the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) consortium. UMHealthResearch is now being deployed across the country at half a dozen other CTSA programs in Illinois and Florida, with more expressing interest as the word spreads about its unique design and interface.
The platform launched for a consortium of institutions in Chicago on May 28. Eight top universities and hospitals in Chicago have launched a customized version of UMHR to match the public with health research opportunities that need volunteers in the race to discover treatments, vaccines, and what the pandemic’s long-term impacts will be on healthy people and survivors.
“One of the biggest slowdowns in doing health research is finding the people to participate,” said Julian Solway, MD, Dean for Translational Medicine at the University of Chicago. “We’re in the fight of our lifetimes, and the world needs more answers faster than ever as our team’s race to find COVID-19 treatments and vaccines, as well as to understand what the pandemic’s impacts will be on all of us.”
The tool, called TNN Match, is part of The New Normal (TNN)™ movement to increase public awareness of health research and make it easy to access jargon-free information about studies on topics people care about the most. TNN Match removes the headache of trying to translate complex medical terms and guess if you’re a good fit for a study. Instead, it delivers study matches in an approachable tone on a mobile-friendly platform.
"The partnership with Michigan has been absolutely phenomenal," said Sara Serritella, Director of The New Normal™ Campaign in Illinois that involves three CTSA programs and harnesses the MICHR technology. "Not only is its platform brilliantly designed, but its team of people and their passion for the project were instrumental in successfully scaling this tool."
The New Normal™ movement is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and made possible through the collaboration of nine top hospitals and universities: The University of Chicago, Rush, Northwestern University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, NorthShore University Health System, Illinois Institute of Technology, Advocate Health Care, and the University of Michigan.
At MICHR, about $2 million and 10 years of user-centered design have gone into creating the tool, and it’s now available to the public and researchers for free to team up in the fight against COVID-19. Nearly 50,000 people have volunteered to participate in health studies at U-M via UMHealthResearch.org.
“We are truly gratified to see the technology we built help people come together during this major public health crisis,” said George A. Mashour, MD, PhD, Director of MICHR. “This innovation will help accelerate research as we work to overcome this pandemic.”
Learn more about the platform at yourhealthresearch.org.