Medical research centers, pharmaceutical companies and health IT organizations have united to form Partnership to Advance Clinical electronic Research (PACeR), a new collaborative effort designed to improve the speed and quality of clinical research necessary to develop new medicines.

According to the Albany, N.Y.-based collaborative, PACeR is focused on patient benefit, recognizing the importance of adhering to strict safeguards to protect patients’ interests, including safety, quality, individualized care, privacy, and access to timely care. PACeR said it will work closely with the medical centers to assess current data capabilities and leverage the opportunities presented to integrate clinical trial elements into electronic clinical records repositories.

Current participants include New York academic medical centers, Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Quintiles, Healthcare Association of New York State, the Hastings Center, and the Legal Action Committee. 

PACeR will also work with the standards and regulatory-based organizations that include the FDA, Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium, and HL7.  Moving forward, PACeR stated it hopes to engage additional industry and academic medical center partners.

PACeR stated it plans to deliver benefits for patients, providers, and other healthcare sector participants, including:

• Accelerating the process of delivering new medicines to patients;
• Improving the efficiency and efficacy of research conducted by academic medical centers;
• Improving the ability of IT companies to understand patient and provider needs, resulting in enhanced system offerings; and
• Increasing the return on investment for pharmaceutical research resources.