Operations Core

The goal of the Operations Core (OC) is to provide staff, services, and resources to help Yale researchers conduct aging-focused research. The Operations Core includes a Field Component and Data Management and Informatics Component.

The Program on Aging (POA) Operations Core comprises skilled research staff, whose number fluctuates to accommodate the needs of our investigators and active research projects. There is a core group of permanent staff who are experts in aging-related research methodologies and possess decades of work experience working on a variety of study designs including: pilot studies, clinical trials, large multi-center research studies, pragmatic trials, and qualitative research.

Maintenance of an experienced staffing pool minimizes time- and cost- inefficiencies, including delays due to difficulty locating, hiring, and training. This also allows us to maintain an impressive track record of recruiting and retaining older persons and enrolling populations from diverse ethnic and racial groups.

Research staff are experienced with the demands of screening, recruitment, and retention, the need for comprehensive training and documentation, project management, monitoring of study operations, and on-going quality assurance measures.

• Grant Development (methodology, human subject protection)
• Protocol and Manual of Operations Development
• Budget Development
• IRB and Regulatory Compliance
• Study Start Up Activities
• Recruitment and Retention of older adult populations- local and national
• Expertise in local community resources servicing older adults
• Centralized Call Center (national studies)
• Data Collection
• Geriatric-Focused Physical Assessments
• Medical Record Abstraction
• Quantitative and Qualitative Interviewing
• Consultation
• Training

• Project Managers
• Clinical Research Nurses
• Physical Therapists
• Research Associates
• Research Assistants

• Data Management including reports, cleaning, and data visualization
• Expertise in SAS, MATLAB, MPlus, STATA, R, Linux-based web technologies
• Analysis
• Specialized Software Development
• Consultation
• Budget Development
• Grant development (methodology, data protection and storage)
• Training
• Electronic Data Collection (EDC) Form Development, including REDCap, Oncore, Qualtrics
• Testing and Validation of EDC
• Workflow Development
• Large datasets including CMS, NHATS
• Centralized Data Coordinating Center (national studies)

• Analysts
• Software Designers
• Data Managers
• Assistant Data Managers

Yale Program on Aging was awarded an administrative supplement through the National Institute of Health (NIH) to support enhancement of software tools. The team will distribute proven high-utility research support tools through the Vanderbilt Consortium REDCap library. These tools help researchers manage studies and are based on versions employed for studies such as SILVER-AMI, STRIDE, and D-CARE

We coordinate services regularly within the Yale research community:

• Yale Center for Analytical Sciences
• Yale Center for Medical Informatics (YCMI)
  
• Yale Center for Clinical Investigation
  
• REDCap @ Yale

Phone: 203-737-1800

Fax: 203-785-4823