UK NETT Clinical Site hub

This proposal describes the establishment of a Neurological Emergencies Treatment Trials (NETT) Network Clinical Site Hub at the University of Kentucky Medical Center (UKMC) in Lexington, Kentucky, in response to NIH/NINDS RFA-NS-06-009. The overall goal of this proposal is to identify UKMC as an academic medical facility with regional affiliate partners adept in "the evaluation of treatments for patients with a broad spectrum of neurological emergencies." The NETT Clinical Site Hub at UKMC is founded upon an intrainstitutional collaboration between physician faculty members of the Departments of Emergency Medicine, Neurology, and Neurosurgery. Regional affiliate medical care facilities aligned with UKMC include the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center/Cooper Drive Division (DVAMC/CDD) in Lexington and "spoke" community hospitals located in non-urban environments throughout Central and Eastern Kentucky. The following Specific Aims are proposed: 1) To demonstrate the existence of an infrastructure for patient recruitment in "large, simple" clinical trials performed in acute-onset neurological disorders modeled by TBI, drawing upon the resources of a Level 1 Trauma Center situated within a broadly-based geographical network of referring hospitals in non-urban settings and 2) To demonstrate the existence of an infrastructure for patient recruitment in clinical trials performed in acute-onset neurological disorders, requiring Exception to Consent for Emergency Research.