“Caring for one patient can impact hundreds. What we do for one child becomes part of care for many others.” This is the shared ethos of the Clinical Translational Research Center (CRTC) nursing team at Children’s Hospital Colorado.The CRTC nursing team is a group of nine certified nurses who perform care for the patients participating in various research studies, including complex procedures, infusions, gene therapy and pharmacokinetic assessments. Beyond their technical expertise, the close-knit team fosters a welcoming and supportive environment for patients and families, ensuring that each individual feels heard, valued and safe.
Collaborating regularly with providers, study coordinators and various inpatient units, the CTRC team provides high quality patient care while also collecting data their research studies produce.
“We have to be extremely detail-oriented and take accountability for any mistakes in protocol,” explained Rachel Mansour, clinical research nurse. “Everything has to be as exact as possible, down to the minute.”
Nursing in the research clinic differs from other areas in the hospital for many reasons, but most notably because instead of care that focuses on the treatment of symptoms, the CRTC nursing team works on developing curative solutions while streamlining clinical workflows.
These medical and operational solutions can be seen in the team's collaborative work to study new medication types for multiple diseases, including Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Always identifying opportunities to create more efficient treatment plans, the CTRC team performed studies to assess new medication treatments based on patient's specific genetic type of CF. This medication, now the standard of care, has made it so that CF patients are not sick nearly as often, drastically decreasing hospitalizations.
The team also recently embarked on a project to streamline IV reaction protocols. Because infusions have a wide range of complexity as well as a high risk of a child reacting negatively, the CRTC team saw an opportunity to standardize a research-specific, evidence-based workflow for these procedures.
“We worked with our medical directors and investigational pharmacists to develop an infusion reaction plan,” explained Kim Pham, senior clinical research nurse. “Kazy and Eileen worked with the simulation center to provide real-time learning for providers, nurses, and study teams so our staff feels safe treating infusion reactions and understands what the expectations are.”
On top of their individual research studies, the CRTC Nurses often come together to collaborate on larger high-impact projects, like leading a historic COVID-19 vaccine trial. In 2020, Children’s Colorado became the largest pediatric Pfizer vaccine site for ages 5-11, and the CTRC team was responsible for both distribution, data collection and determining the safety and efficacy of the Pfizer vaccine, for 252 selected children, to be approved for widespread distribution for children during the pandemic.
“Everyone sacrificed a lot during that study,” said Kazy Welch, senior clinical research nurse. “We saw many patients a day and became a part of history as the team that provided the care for this site.”
Discussing their most cherished parts of their job, such as forming unique relationships with patient-families and supporting one another, the clinical research nurses all agreed their favorite element is experiencing large impactful moments among their everyday tasks. Because of the research component, each CTRC nurse is both a witness and active participant in caring for individual patients that have a multiplied impact as well as implications for the future of healthcare.
The nurses in the CTRC function as a collaborative team, sharing ownership of all clinic patients and stepping in to support one another whenever needed.
“People always comment on how happy we seem,” said Alicia Van Fleet, clinical research nurse. “It’s true – we have such a great team dynamic with so much support.”