We are seeking a Sr Research Program Coordinator who will work with the Program Manager and Primary Investigators to manage operations of the research team across a clinical trial, the LINKED-BP Program. This program seeks to improve blood pressure among patients who receive care at community health centers. The program will provide some participants with a home blood pressure device, connections to a community health worker, and a mobile health app. Others will be given the blood pressure monitor only. Over the course of 12 months, the study will evaluate whether people who receive these interventions were able to lower their blood pressure and will compare the outcomes of the higher intervention group to the one with only the home blood pressure monitor. The LINKED-BP Program is part of the American Heart Association-funded RESTORE (Addressing Social Determinants TO prevent hypertension) Network.
The scope of this position includes planning, organizing, and directing the completion of the trial while ensuring the project is on time, on budget, and within its goals.
Specific Duties & Responsibilities
The primary duties and responsibilities of the job
- Assists Research Program manager with directing and managing a complex, multi-method, cluster-randomized intervention trial taking place in community-based clinics across health systems in the Baltimore-Washington, DC metropolitan area. Interventions include training in better blood pressure measurement for clinicians and staff, establishing a collaborative care team of a community health worker, and primary care provider (PCP) at active intervention clinics.
- Responsible for collaborating with all community partners.
- Partners with PIs of the study and investigative team in the overall planning for the research team.
- Creates processes and new systems to ensure high level of operation and successful implementation of the sponsored project.
- Participates in scientific discussions with co-investigators and collaborators in the RESTORE Network.
- Regularly engages with health systems and stakeholders to recruit participating health systems and clinic sites.
- Facilitates communication between the research team, healthcare leadership teams at participating health systems, office staff, intervention and other research staff, and sponsoring agencies.
- Prepares stakeholder materials including, but not limited to, value propositions, letters of agreement, health system research applications, and workflow schematics.
Development of data collection and intervention materials
- Under supervision of the PIs and investigative team, drafts sections of the study protocol.
- Drafts and finalizes consent forms for research participants with guidance from the investigative team; schedules interview and oversees survey administration.
- Drafts and finalizes patient recruitment scripts under the guidance of the investigative team.
- Identifies clinics within health systems for participation and gathers demographic data from available sources.
- Helps oversee recruiters and monitor achievement of study participant recruitment goals and ensures appropriate, timely, and accurate documentation and data entry.
- Assists in the development of blood pressure training protocols for primary care providers and medical assistants at clinical sites with guidance from the investigative team and the cores in the RESTORE Network.
- Develops training materials, patient identification protocols, and intervention protocols with guidance from the PIs and co-investigators.
Data synthesis and analysis
- Serves as liaison between study team and information technology/data management unit regarding use of the electronic medical record data for patient identification, tracking of process and outcome measures including patient treatment and blood pressure, and other metabolic profile measurements.
- Serves as liaison between study team and information technology/data management unit regarding purpose and function of the clinical dashboard.
- Participates in planning, analysis and interpretation of data.
- Develops the structure of tables for data entry and display.
- Cleans data from health system and surveys prior to entry into summary tables (performing analyses to check the accuracy of data).
- Synthesizes and edits research findings and technical data.
- Reviews the statistical output and writes summaries of the output to integrate into the final results section of each report/manuscript.
- Participates in the development and submission of manuscripts by preparing a draft of Methods, Results, Tables, and Figures for main study manuscripts.
- Prepares study results for presentation at professional meetings.
- Assists investigative team in developing plan for disseminating the results of the study.
Administration
- Plans agendas and coordinates project and clinical stakeholder meetings.
- Reviews, edits, distributes minutes from project and clinical stakeholder meetings.
- Assures project management tasks are completed (e.g., prioritize, timeliness, milestones, monitoring, status).
- Plans agendas and coordinates Coordinating Council meetings with input from project PIs, directors of research methods, training, and community engagement, workgroup leaders, and communications associate.
- Participates in monthly oversight meeting with funding agencies and prepares regular project updates.
- Schedules introductory and follow up meetings with health system, payor, and primary care association stakeholders.
- Schedules blood pressure trainings for the clinic sites.
- Works in coordination with research team to ensure accuracy, proper organization and advanced preparation of sponsored projects applications and reports.
- Prepares and updates study protocols and reports for Institutional Review Board; oversees investigative team's compliance training.
- Assists with grant development under the guidance of the PI and co-investigators.
- Perform other duties as assigned.
Supervision
- Interviews, hires, and trains research staff.
- Supervises 4-6 research assistants.
- Identifies personnel who are behind in their projects and helps when needed.
- Identifies and delegates appropriate tasks to support the work of the research project.
Technical Qualifications or Specialized Certifications
- Operates personal computer to access email, electronic calendars, and other basic office support software.
- Utilizes Internet to search for information.
- Must demonstrate skills in MS Office (Word, Excel, Outlook, Power Point), Qualtrics, REDcap, Statistical Software and reference management tools.
- Experience with accessing clinical data such as diagnoses, encounters, procedures, medications, and labs on unique patients’ health data.
Special Knowledge, Skills, & Abilities
- Excellent written communication skills, knowledge of quantitative research methods is required with an understanding of scientific research, medical and research terminology.
- High degree of organizational effectiveness and attention to detail.
- Strong ability to develop relationships with co-workers and community stakeholders.
- Knowledge and experience with electronic data bases.
- Strong ability to be self-motivated, multi-task and juggle multiple projects effectively, be able to initiate and drive projects with minimal guidance and be effective in collaborating with multi-site teams of individuals with diverse backgrounds, knowledge, skills, and experience.
- The qualified candidate must possess Organizational Astuteness, Managing Technical Processes, Process Improvement, Monitoring and Reporting Skills, Interpersonal Relationships, Supports Innovation, Develop and Implement Standards (Compliance, Ethics), Administrative/Research Writing Skills.
- Experience in the grant application development process and research program administration in an academic environment.
Minimum Qualifications
- Bachelor's Degree in related discipline.
- Three years related experience.
- Additional education may substitute for required experience and additional related experience may substitute for required education beyond HS Diploma/Graduation Equivalent, to the extent permitted by the JHU equivalency formula.
Preferred Qualifications
- Related Master's Degree in a Health profession preferred.
- Prior experience as a Research Program Coordinator.
- Demonstrated supervisory or lead responsibilities.
- Experience in managing federally funded research projects and nursing projects.
- Strong management and communication skills.
- Knowledge of and experience with large database data extraction and research.
Classified Title: Sr. Research Program Coordinator
Role/Level/Range: ACRP/03/MB
Starting Salary Range: $41,300 - $72,300 Annually ($56,800 targeted; Commensurate w/exp.)
Employee group: Full Time
Schedule: Monday - Friday 8:30 - 5:00
FLSA Status: Exempt
Location: Remote
Department name: Research Finance
Personnel area: School of Nursing
