Department of Family Medicine and Community Health
925 Delaware Street, SE, Suite 220
Minneapolis, MN 55414

In order for the clinical research enterprise to remain successful, new partnerships with primary care providers who deliver the majority of care to the US population need to be developed. These partnerships should enhance the ability of investigators to conduct research, as well as facilitate delivery to clinicians of better tools to provide care. Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are a fundamental tool for new discovery. Although potentially rich sources of patients and data, primary care practices have not traditionally been sites for RCTs. Reasons for this include difficulty identifying subjects, delivery of complex interventions, privacy, confidentiality, and human subjects protection issues. However, emerging technologies and methodologies can now overcome these obstacles. Introduction of open-source technology using very high speed backbone networking allows greater functionality, security, and communication, and permits the integration of primary physicians and their practice populations into the clinical research enterprise, and substantially enhances the potential for the performance of RCTs.