Overview

The SF Coordinating Center is a University-based enterprise specializing in coordinating multi-center studies within the domains of our scientific interests: women’s health, aging, cognitive function, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer prevention, osteoporosis, arthritis, and dementia. It uniquely combines scientific expertise in these areas with broad experience in managing multi-center studies, and offers access to our network of high quality, experienced clinical centers. These centers have a proven track record in patient recruitment and quality data collection to implement successful recruitment and follow-up activities.

Steven R. Cummings, MD is the Director of the SF Coordinating Center. Dennis Black, PhD, Deborah Grady, MD, and Michael Nevitt, PhD are Associate Directors. They oversee all aspects of managing Coordinating Center activity including scientific and staff management.

Although organized in a traditional hierarchical structure, the SF Coordinating Center operates in a matrix fashion. A new project is assigned a Project Coordinator/Director and a project team. This team, led by the Principal Investigator, is devoted to the study. Depending on the needs of the study, the team draws on experienced staff from the following specialized areas:

• Study Design
• Operations Manual and Forms Development
• Training, Quality Control, and Clinic Operations
• Endpoint Adjudication
• Recruitment and Retention through our affiliated Clinical Centers
• Data Management
• Statistics and Data Analysis
• Administration and Communication

The SF Coordinating Center provides a full-range of services to support multi-center studies. Services range from study design and identification of clinical centers to data analysis and publication. The SF Coordinating Center may provide a complete set of design, implementation, and analysis services, or any subset of available services.