National Institutes of Health awards $4.8 Million Grand Opportunity (GO) Grant to the Center for Healthcare Quality

Patients who want to participate in potentially life-saving clinical research trials in South Carolina will find it easier to do so, thanks to a $4.8 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) Grand Opportunity (GO) Grant to the University of South Carolina's Center for Healthcare Quality. GO Grants are a special, limited category of awards offered through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. They are specifically for research and research infrastructure projects like the statewide health information technology (HIT) system currently under construction through the HSSC-supported Center for Healthcare Quality. The GO Grant will accelerate the development of a statewide internet-based research network that will enable patients to identify and volunteer for clinical research trials in the state, receive notifications of future research trials related to their condition and protect their personal health information. The Research Permissions Management System also will help enable researchers to manage legal, ethical, social, and bioinformatics requirements. Endowed Chair, Dr. Jay Moskowitz, said the GO Grant will give people suffering from serious disease more treatment options. "Clinical research trials are often the last bastion of hope. Increasingly, patients and their family members are looking to the Internet for a medical lifeline. With the statewide Research Permission Management System, we will have the ability to extend the lifeline to more people in and outside of South Carolina," he said.