North Florida Foundation for Research and Education

A nonprofit va Research and Education Foundation, the North Florida Foundation for Research and Education, Inc. (nffre) was established to administer and facilitates Research and Education programs within the North florida/south Georgia veterans health system (nf/sgvhs) located in gainesville Florida. Researchers at the nf/sgvhs conduct investigator- initiated and pharmaceutical/device sponsor initiated trials. Nffre benefits va health care and strives to provide support and flexible funding mechanisms to support va researchers and collaborators while offering additional opportunities for our veterans to participate in clinical trials. Our Research is dedicated to investigating a variety of ailments afflicting the nation's veterans. Nffre plays an important role supporting va investigators and serves to facilitate collaborative efforts with industry sponsors, academic institutions, other federal agencies, voluntary health organizations, nonprofit professional societies, and for-profit companies to conduct clinical trials, test therapeutic interventions, support lab based projects and collect data for outcomes projects. A few examples of nffre's contributions to va Research and va Education at nf/sgvhs: during fiscal year 2019, nffre fostered many sponsored studies conducted at nf/sgvhs with industry collaborators including novartis, endocyte, glaxo smith kline, rti surgical, astrazeneca, endologix, sanofi, gilead sciences, janssen, endologix, biomonde, celgene, pfizer, cirius, amgen, population health Research institute, philips respironics, and nffre managed over 20 active cradas and initiated 16 new cradas (va collaborative Research and development agreements).

Nffre's contributions to va Education conducted at nf/sg vhs included: medical Education. Nffre manages the annual richard m. whittington lecture series, which is funded to support medical Education at nf/sgvhs. Also, dr. michael bubb's proposal titled incorporation of patient reported outcomes data in the care of us veterans with rheumatoid arthritis. The overall goal of this proposal was to address barriers to the use of patient reported outcome (pro) data in the dept. Of veterans affairs (va) health care system. The hypothesis was that the availability of these data in the form of the patient-completed mdhaq/rapid3 questionnaire will change patient- centric outcomes such as patient reported well-being, patient satisfaction and medication compliance. The targeted population was us veterans with rheumatoid arthritis who receive medical care within the North florida/south Georgia veterans integrated service network (nf/sg visn).