About Our Research Program at Baptist Health
We’re Finding the Answers to Good Health
Have you ever wondered how medical advances occur? Have you seen an advertisement for a high blood pressure medication, a hip replacement, or a new treatment for cancer or diabetes and wondered what led to that innovation?
The answer is clinical research. Our ability to better understand and more effectively diagnose, monitor, prevent and/or treat the diseases and conditions that affect the human body hinges upon vigorous research programs and the commitment of healthcare organizations like Baptist Health.
Helping Yourself Also Helps Others
The main component of effective clinical research is patient participation. Participation has two significant benefits to the future care of patients. Individual patients often benefit because of research there are more options available to them. Clinical research expands our knowledge of diseases and treatments so that the research procedures of today can become the standard treatments of tomorrow. Participating in research is truly a case of potentially helping others.
What Makes Baptist Health a Leader in Clinical Research?
At Baptist Health, our leadership in clinical research is directly linked to our organizational mission of serving the healthcare needs of patients and communities across Kentucky and Southern Indiana. Clinicians in Baptist Health facilities are currently engaged in hundreds of clinical studies. These studies include Phase I/II/III/IV/PAS, investigational drugs, devices, humanitarian use devices (HUD/HDE), investigator initiated studies, biospecimen, registry, observational, and investigational procedures. Therapeutic areas include:
- Cardiology/vascular diseases
- Dermatology
- Gastroenterology
- Hematology
- Immunology
- Infections and infectious diseases
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Nutrition and weight loss
- Obstetrics/gynecology (women’s health)
- Oncology
- Orthopedics/orthopedic surgery
- Pediatrics/neonatology
- Pharmacology/toxicology
- Pulmonary/respiratory diseases
- Urology
We’re also involved in state- and national-level research organizations, such as the NCI’s National Clinical Trials Network www.cancer.gov and the Guardian Research Network, which bring together leading medical investigators to pool resources, share data, and coordinate clinical trials in the ongoing fight against cancer and other deadly diseases.
Baptist Health has also received national recognition for its participation in the CREST-2 registry. The CREST-2 registry’s primary objective is to promote rapid initiation and enrollment to the CREST-2 randomized clinical trial for the treatment of patients with severe symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid artery occlusive disease, a leading cause of strokes in the United States. Sponsored by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), the trial is being conducted by principal investigator, Michael Jones, MD, a cardiologist and staff physician at Baptist Health Lexington. Our site remains the top enroller among the more than 100 locations nationwide participating in the trial.