June 23, 2020
American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Center for Research and Innovation™ (CRI) was selected by the Society of Clinical Care Medicine (SCCM) to serve as the overall imaging repository for the Discovery Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study (VIRUS) COVID-19 Registry.
American College of Radiology notes the study aims to create a real-time registry of current ICU and hospital care patterns to allow evaluation of safety and observational effectiveness of COVID-19 practices.
In collaboration with SCCM, the ACR CRI will collect all diagnostic images for the VIRUS COVID-19 Registry, create a link between the images and clinical data collected by SCCM, and archive images to make them accessible to participating sites through combined dashboard reporting.
“We are excited to support this effort to enhance the quality, safety and effectiveness of patient care during this public health crisis,” says Etta Pisano, MD, chief research officer of the ACR. “The utilization of both clinical and imaging data is likely to be very important in monitoring and predicting the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as it affects rural America in the months ahead. The ACR is proud to be of service to the country through this effort. This study also lays the groundwork for future collaborative efforts to harness the power of bringing data together in a federated model, while allowing study participants the autonomy to determine how much data is shared.”
The registry will be essential for near-real time observational comparative effectiveness studies to learn effective treatment strategies and/or provide meaningful hypotheses for clinical trials. A dashboard tracks data on trends such as mechanical ventilation duration, ICU length of stay, ICU discharge details and the type of medical support patients receive, as well as patient demographics: gender, age and race. Underscoring the urgent demand for such a registry, VIRUS hit its first major milestone of 1,000 patients enrolled after being open just three weeks. To date, it has collected data on more than 8,500 patients from 184 healthcare sites.
“The Society of Critical Care Medicine is proud to have the ACR CRI as a partner in the Discovery VIRUS Registry, as both organizations strive to fulfill a shared mission to improve care for patients with COVID-19 and develop strategies for future outbreaks,” said SCCM CEO David Martin, CAE. “We are finding new ways to collaborate, share data and communicate information, moving quickly under unprecedented timelines. These strong partnership are vital to our success.”
Rahul Kashyap, MBBS, MBA of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota serves as principal investigator; along with co-principal investigators Vishakha Kumar, MD, MBA of SCCM and Allen J. Walkey, MD, MSc of Boston University.