Research coordinator position from scratch, need guidance

[GundeRN]

I have been an RN with a small rural hospital, working in the Infusion therapy department. We recently had COC survey our facility and found us deficient in a research coordinator. They have asked me to fill the position but as I would be the first one, I am winging it. I have been asked to bring our percentage of patients on clinical trials up to 6%. Our facility is unable to do pharmaceutical trials and so my focus has been on trying to find trials that center on quality of life. Currently I have been just scouring clinicatrials.gov and emailing the contacts of potential fits.

My questions

#1 is there a better way to get this accomplished?

#2 is there more to a research coordinator than this? What else should I be doing?

Obviously I know nothing. Please help.

[aelie]

I would suggest looking for conferences to attend. ACRP or SOCRA is a good place to start. There is a whole heck of a lot more that goes into Clinical Research, so I would start building a good relationship with all the department heads that are typically involved with research at your hospital.

[lauranurselaura, BSN, RN]

Hi GundeRN,

I agree with aelie. I would join ACRP so that you are able to post questions like the ones you posed about QoL studies on their very helpful discussion boards. There are so many experienced folks there who can serve as great resources!