ResearchMatch: A National Registry to Recruit Volunteers for Clinical Research

TLDR

The registry was created as a collaborative project for institutions in the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium. The authors created ResearchMatch, a disease‑neutral, Web‑based registry that matches volunteers with researchers across the United States, and described its stakeholders, workflow, technical infrastructure, and early utilization metrics. ResearchMatch operates through a stakeholder‑driven workflow model and technical infrastructure that has connected volunteers to researchers, and the authors are evaluating regulatory and workflow options to expand access to non‑CTSA institutions. By June 2011, ResearchMatch had enrolled 15,871 volunteers from all 50 states, 751 researchers from 61 CTSA institutions, and facilitated recruitment into 540 active studies, demonstrating successful volunteer‑researcher matching.

Abstract

The authors designed ResearchMatch, a disease-neutral, Web-based recruitment registry to help match individuals who wish to participate in clinical research studies with researchers actively searching for volunteers throughout the United States. In this article, they describe ResearchMatch's stakeholders, workflow model, technical infrastructure, and, for the registry's first 19 months of operation, utilization metrics. Having launched volunteer registration tools in November 2009 and researcher registration tools in March 2010, ResearchMatch had, as of June 2011, registered 15,871 volunteer participants from all 50 states. The registry was created as a collaborative project for institutions in the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) consortium. Also as of June 2011, a total of 751 researchers from 61 participating CTSA institutions had registered to use the tool to recruit participants into 540 active studies and trials. ResearchMatch has proven successful in connecting volunteers with researchers, and the authors are currently evaluating regulatory and workflow options to open access to researchers at non-CTSA institutions.