1. What is the CVRN?

The Cardiovascular Research Network (CVRN) is a national research consortium and resource that leverages research expertise, populations, and data sources from 11 geographically diverse health care delivery systems (10 million members) in the United States.

2. How many centers make up the CVRN?

There are currently 11 CVRN centers comprised of a health care delivery system and a corresponding dedicated research entity.

CVRN Organization	Research Entity & Location
Kaiser Permanente Northern California *CVRN Lead Organization	Division of Research   Oakland, CA
Fallon Community Health Plan	Meyers Primary Care Institute   Worcester, MA
Kaiser Permanente Washington	Health Research Institute   Seattle, WA
HealthPartners	HealthPartners Research Foundation   Minneapolis, MN
Henry Ford Health System	Center for Health Services Research   Detroit, MI
Kaiser Permanente Colorado	Institute for Health Research   Denver, CO
Kaiser Permanente Northwest	Center for Health Research   Portland, OR
Kaiser Permanente Georgia	Center for Clinical & Outcomes Research   Atlanta, GA
Kaiser Permanente Southern California	Department of Research & Evaluation   Pasadena, CA
Marshfield Clinic	Marshfield Clinic Research Foundation   Marshfield, WI
Baylor Scott and White	Division of Research & Education   Temple, TX

3. What services and opportunities does the CVRN offer to researchers?

• The CVRN offers opportunities for researchers from any institution to collaborate on multi-institutional, cardiovascular research projects by partnering with CVRN researchers to leverage robust health care-related clinical and administrative data--most of which is accessible electronically--derived from large, diverse community-based populations.
  

• The CVRN will provide letters of support/endorsement for grant proposals that include CVRN collaborators and align with CVRN goals.

• The CVRN offers a number of existing research datasets for collaboration on new cardiovascular research ideas or manuscripts. Researchers from any institution are able to suggest new grant proposals and/or manuscript analyses based on large, research-quality datasets from completed or ongoing CVRN projects using each contributing center's Virtual Data Warehouse (VDW).

• The CVRN will review manuscript ideas and, if approved, provide analytic support  options as follows:

1. Working directly with the lead investigator to complete analyses and report results in a timely manner

2. Providing a scrambled, de-identified analytic dataset which will allow them to test SAS code for approved descriptive and multivariable analyses that are then run on the source analytic dataset to generate the study results.

4. I am interested in working with the CVRN, but am new to research. How do I begin collaboration?

• If you are looking to collaborate on existing data for the purpose of writing new manuscripts, please go to the Projects page to learn about the CVRN datasets currently available for collaboration.  You may reach out to any of the people listed in the ‘Contacts and Other Resources’ section of each dataset description.
• If you are looking to conduct a new study, please see the Collaborations page. 

5. What is the difference between a Manuscript Analysis Request, a Grant Preliminary Analysis Request, a Manuscript Draft for Review, and a Grant Proposal?

• Manuscript Analysis Request:  This is when you have a request for proposing a data analysis based on EXISTING completed CVRN project datasets.  The results of an approved Manuscript Analysis Request will be used to develop a manuscript to submit for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
• Grant Preliminary Analysis Request: This is when you have a request for feasibility analysis on EXISTING CVRN datasets when considering a new CVRN grant proposal idea.  The results of an approved request in this situation will be used to develop a collaborative CVRN grant proposal.
• Manuscript Draft for Review:  This occurs when you have a manuscript which includes a CVRN-related study or data sponsored by the CVRN that you are about to submit to a journal for publication consideration.  It is mandatory that you submit your manuscript draft to the CVRN New Proposals and Publications Committee for rapid review and to ensure that the funding agency is properly acknowledged before submission.
• Grant Proposal: This is when you have a new collaborative CVRN grant proposal for a study you plan to submit to a funder.  The proposal includes collaborating with a CVRN site and CVRN data.  You are submitting a grant proposal request so that you can obtain CVRN endorsement of this proposal before you submit to the funder.

6. Does the CVRN charge for endorsement of manuscripts or grant proposals?

No, endorsement of approved CVRN manuscripts and grant proposals is free of charge.

7. What are the CVRN datasets?

Each research dataset is generated from an existing CVRN multi-site project and includes longitudinal clinical and administrative information derived from the CVRN Virtual Data Warehouse (VDW) as well as other data sources. In each dataset description provided on www.cvrn.org, you will find systematic information on the cohort assembly process (including inclusion and exclusion criteria as well as data sources), cohort characteristics, key exposure and outcome variables, existing scientific abstracts and publications, and the corresponding CVRN contacts and resources. Certain dataset descriptions may also contain additional information, such as more specific details about dataset creation processes as well as important analytic considerations.

8. What is the purpose of the CVRN datasets?

The CVRN Datasets allow collaborators to suggest new grant proposals and/or manuscript analyses based on large, research quality datasets from completed or ongoing CVRN projects.

9. How do I know which dataset to use?

Descriptions of each dataset are available through each Project Page. These descriptions provide information on dataset population, cohort characteristics, cohort inclusion and exclusion criteria, dataset creation steps, variables, important analytic considerations, existing scientific abstracts and publications, and corresponding CVRN contacts. Such descriptions are available to aid collaborators in determining if a dataset aligns with their aims.

10. Where can I find more information on CVRN datasets?

Descriptions of each dataset are available at http://cvrn.org/collaboration/datasets.aspx. These descriptions provide information on dataset population, cohort characteristics, cohort inclusion and exclusion criteria, dataset creation steps, variables, important analytic considerations, existing scientific abstracts and publications, and corresponding CVRN contacts. Such descriptions are available to aid collaborators in determining if a dataset aligns with their aims.

11. I have a new idea for cardiovascular research (which existing datasets do not cover); can I still use the CVRN services offered?

Absolutely. Please see the Collaborations page of the site. You may also contact the CVRN Director, Dr. Alan S. Go (alan.s.go@kp.org), or Sue Hee Sung (sue.hee.sung@kp.org) for more information.