Harvey L. Neiman Health Policy Institute has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish a core center for clinical research to promote musculoskeletal clinical research. It will be based at the University of Washington (UW). 

The new clinical research center will be called the Clinical Learning, Effectiveness and Research (CLEAR) Center and will be led by Jeffrey G. Jarvik, MD, MPH, professor of radiology at UW Medicine. The intent of the center is to improve methods for conducting clinical musculoskeletal studies and provide analysis-ready data for scientific investigators. 

“The UW’s CLEAR Center represents an important collaboration between multiple departments, schools and institutions, all sharing the common goal of promoting new approaches to collecting and analyzing data to address some of the most common and disabling clinical conditions,” Jarvik said. 

As a research partner of the CLEAR Center, the Neiman Institute will make their extensive data holdings available to investigators, most notably, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) 5 percent research identifiable files which contain all fee-for-service claims for a 5 percent national sample of Medicare beneficiaries.