INSIGHT Clinical Research Network

The INSIGHT Clinical Research Network is a partnership of seven academic and clinical health centers in New York City that is led by Weill Cornell Medicine. INSIGHT’s mission is to understand the factors driving health resource utilization and health outcomes across a socioeconomically and demographically diverse urban population through the conduct of patient-centered outcomes research and health service research while increasing the uptake efficiency of evidence-based practices in clinical care.

The network is advancing more complete and comprehensive data sets for research by linking clinical data from its participating sites to complementary data sources, including both Medicare and Medicaid claims and claims from private health plans. This data linkage provides a more complete picture of patients’ healthcare experience and is essential for providing the necessary depth of data for real-world evidence studies.

To maximize research opportunities, INSIGHT actively engages with a multitude of different stakeholders including patients, clinicians, health system leaders, and researchers. The network is committed to prioritizing engagement and utilizes various methods including conducting listening sessions as well as assembling a Patient Advisory Board and Clinical Advisory Board. To uphold INSIGHT’s patient-centric model, patient engagement is a network priority. Patients are engaged throughout the research process by providing their perspectives on improving the design, implementation, and validity of research through avenues such as focus groups and interviews. Patient stakeholders also take part in accelerator teams, which are multi-stakeholder teams that work collaboratively to generate new ideas and approaches to research as well as aide in the response to funding opportunities.

INSIGHT is governed by the Governing Board (GB), comprising INSIGHT’s principal investigator (PI), three co-PIs, and site-level PIs for all participating institutions. The GB is tasked with maintaining the network’s data infrastructure, overseeing existing research projects, developing network policies, and creating stakeholder engagement strategies. The GB is also advised by an External Advisory Board that helps provide strategic insight and planning to INSIGHT’s leadership. Routine management of the network is handled by a program management office at Weill Cornell Medicine.

PCORnet is intended to serve as a national resource for conducting rapid, efficient, patient-centered observational and interventional randomized research that improves healthcare delivery and health outcomes. Over the course of this project period INSIGHT will enhance and optimize its infrastructure to support a variety of patient-centered studies by:

• Ensuring meaningful engagement of patients, caregivers, clinicians, delivery systems, payors, and researchers, in all phases of the research process
• Operating through a network model in which data remains at the source while allowing approved researchers within and outside the network to access it securely through a central point
• Facilitating the public sharing of resources and reusable tools to make research more efficient and reproducible
• Using the PCORnet CDM, which standardizes the data collected when patients receive care so that it is comparable across health systems and can be used for patient-centered outcomes research
• Using streamlined processes such as one central IRB for studies involving multiple systems and standardized data use agreements, to enable research to be quicker and more efficient

About PCORnet^® Clinical Research Networks (CRNs)