Opportunities for strengthening CTSA evaluation

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to describe the progress of the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program to address the evaluation-related recommendations made by the 2013 Institute of Medicine's review of the CTSA Program and guidelines published in CTS Journal the same year (Trochim et al., Clinical and Translational Science 2013; 6(4): 303-309). We utilize data from a 2018 national survey of evaluators administered to all 64 CTSA hubs and a content analysis of the role of evaluation in the CTSA Program Funding Opportunity Announcements to document progress. We present four new opportunities for further strengthening CTSA evaluation efforts: (1) continue to build the collaborative evaluation infrastructure at local and national levels; (2) make better use of existing data; (3) strengthen and augment the common metrics initiative; and (4) pursue internal and external opportunities to evaluate the CTSA program at the national level. This article will be of significant interest to the funders of the CTSA Program and the multiple stakeholders in the larger consortium and will promote dialog from the broad range of CTSA stakeholders about further strengthening the CTSA Program's evaluation.

Keywords: CTSA; NCATS; common metrics; evaluation; evaluation policy; translational science.

Fig. 1.

CTSA Evaluation Timeline 2005–2018. This figure illustrates the changing priorities, roles, and definitions of evaluation in CTSA FOAs. It also highlights major events in CTSA Consortium related to evaluation, such as release of IOM report, formation of evaluators collaborative groups, implementation of CMI, and establishment of current CTSA consortium structure.

Fig. 2.

Background on CMI. This figure provides a brief overview of the CMI.

Fig. 3.

Recommendations for evaluation from 2013. This figure highlights key recommendations made by IOM report and the 2013 Guidelines related to CTSA evaluation as a reference.