An increasing number of Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California may soon have access to more of the latest treatments, thanks to the recent expansion of the Clinical Trials Program (CTP).
That’s because the CTP has established a new Academy of Clinical Trialists to support physicians who would like to participate in or design clinical trials. This expansion creates more opportunities for patients to enroll in clinical trials that are shaping the future of medical care.
“We provide excellent care, and I really think of clinical trials as an extension of that excellent care,” said CTP Interim Medical Director and dermatologist Paradi Mirmirani, MD. “Our trials provide important options for patients, and physicians find a tremendous amount of satisfaction in providing these opportunities for patients.”
Clinical trials are research studies in which people help doctors find ways to improve health care. Many trials are designed to find out whether a medicine or treatment is safe and effective for treating a certain condition or disease. They are important because they allow researchers to find out if a new treatment works as well as or better than — or has fewer side effects — than treatments currently being used.
Clinical trials are also used to study whether lifestyle interventions, like diet and exercise, improve health, or the effectiveness of support groups for improving quality of life in patients and caregivers.
To kick off the new academy, the CTP hosted a symposium in March to give physicians more information about how to get involved in clinical trials research taking place at Kaiser Permanente in Northern California.
“Establishing an Academy of Clinical Trialists and hosting this symposium responds to requests from physicians for greater involvement in clinical trials,” said CTP Senior Managing Director Victor Chen, MS. “There are many physicians who hear about new drugs or devices and want to be able to offer them to their patients and would like to help out on or lead a trial.”
Kaiser Permanente in Northern California is currently supporting about 180 active clinical trials that include about 3,500 members.
The symposium, the first of its kind, was attended by 33 physicians representing 14 specialties across 15 Kaiser Permanente facilities in Northern California.
Darshana Pai, MD, an adult and child psychiatrist at Kaiser Permanente in San Mateo,
was one of the physicians eager to attend the inaugural symposium.
“The field of psychiatry is burgeoning with new ideas, and we want to be at the forefront of research and new avenues of treatment,” said Dr. Pai. “For patients who have tried the medications that are available, it is important to be able to tell them that we have something new we can offer.”
Dr. Pai, for one, is ready. “I would encourage other physicians to take part in this training,” she said. “We are all going to have to work in collaboration to bring these studies to our patients.”
Learn more about clinical trials on the KP Study Search website.
