Every research collaboration begins somewhere. Sometimes it’s a promising idea in need of scientific guidance. Sometimes it’s a search for study sites, a methodological challenge, or a need to connect with the right experts. At CNTR, these initial conversations are often the beginning of relationships that extend well beyond a single project.
For investigators Margaret L. (Gretchen) Schwarze, MD, MPP, and Molly Jarman, PhD, their first interactions with CNTR opened doors to resources, expertise, and relationships that continue to contribute to their research. Their experiences illustrate something fundamental about CNTR’s approach: collaboration isn’t simply a service delivered at a particular point in a study. It’s an investment in relationships that can strengthen research over time.
From a Promising Intervention to a National Clinical Trial
Gretchen Schwarze, MD
When Dr. Gretchen Schwarze, a surgeon and researcher at the University of Wisconsin, first approached CNTR, she had already developed and pilot-tested an intervention to improve communication among clinicians, seriously injured older adults, and their families. She was ready to evaluate its effectiveness in a large, multisite clinical trial.
But conducting a trial of that magnitude requires an extensive network of capable study sites, reliable patient enrollment estimates, and infrastructure that gives funders confidence the research can be completed successfully.
CNTR helped connect Schwarze’s team with the American College of Surgeons’ Trauma Quality Improvement Program (TQIP), which provided data to identify potential study sites, estimate eligible patient populations, and inform the trial’s statistical design. “Collaboration with TQIP in this way enabled us to enroll close to 4,000 patients in the study,” said Dr. Schwarze. “TQIP also helped us establish a process to collect two additional data elements we needed for the research. I cannot explain how amazing this was.”
The collaboration extended to CNTR’s Injury Research Engagement Panel (IREP), whose patient and family members provided feedback on the communication tool and helped the researchers better understand the experiences of seriously injured patients and their families.
The study has already yielded important findings. In a 2025 JAMA Surgery publication, Dr. Schwarze and colleagues reported successful implementation of their Best Case/Worst Case communication tool at eight major trauma centers, reaching more than 1,300 patients and families. Clinicians reported that the tool helped families understand their loved ones’ prognosis, improved communication among care teams, and reduced moral distress.
Additional analyses of the larger clinical trial are underway, continuing a research journey that CNTR helped advance from early promise to national implementation.
When One Collaboration Leads to Another
Molly Jarman, PhD
For Molly Jarman, PhD, a health services researcher at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the relationship with CNTR has evolved across several studies focused on improving trauma care.
Her early involvement included participation in a Delphi consensus panel for CNTR’s National Trauma Research Action Plan (NTRAP), followed by collaborations on research proposals involving geriatric trauma and the SHAIR study.
When Dr. Jarman began developing TIDES—Mitigating Injury Disparities with Evidence-Based Trauma Systems Planning—she approached CNTR about managing a Delphi consensus process to establish a national policy agenda for reducing disparities in trauma care.
“Delphi panels and other consensus methods are a valuable tool as we try to shift disparities research from documentation of problems to implementation of solutions, so it’s great to have a group like CNTR that can provide both methodologic and subject matter expertise,” said Dr. Jarman.
Although CNTR was initially expected to join the project in its fourth year, Executive Director Michelle Price, MD, began participating in project meetings much earlier, becoming an active scientific collaborator from the outset.
The relationship has since expanded to another NIH-funded project, Developing a Teletrauma Implementation Toolkit for Early Point-of-Care Delivery of Trauma Care Expertise to Injured Rural Patients (TRUCARE). TRUCARE is led by Jarman’s longtime collaborator Zain Hashmi, MD. While CNTR is employing the Delphi process in the TIDES study to identify policies that could reduce trauma disparities, it’s using the same methodology for TRUCARE to establish clinical parameters for delivering trauma expertise remotely to rural patients.
CNTR is supporting Delphi data collection for both projects, while also contributing subject matter expertise and helping recruit panel participants.
As Jarman explains, consensus methods are increasingly valuable as disparities research moves beyond documenting problems toward implementing solutions. Having a partner that understands both the methodology and the realities facing trauma centers is an important asset.
The Value of Staying Connected
Although Schwarze and Jarman came to CNTR with different needs, their experiences share a common thread: the value of collaboration grows as relationships deepen.
For Schwarze, CNTR helped connect a promising intervention with the clinical networks, data resources, and patient perspectives needed to evaluate it nationally. For Jarman, early involvement in research prioritization evolved into a continuing partnership spanning multiple studies—and helped CNTR develop capabilities that now benefit other investigators.
These relationships are reciprocal. Investigators gain access to CNTR’s expertise and infrastructure, while their projects help CNTR expand its capabilities, strengthen its networks, and identify new opportunities to advance trauma research.
“Some of our most productive partnerships have started with a single conversation about a specific research need,” said CNTR Executive Director Michelle Price, PhD. “But we don’t see that conversation as a one-time transaction. We see it as the beginning of a relationship. As investigators’ research evolves, we want CNTR to evolve alongside them—bringing new expertise, connections, and opportunities to the table. That’s how individual studies become lasting collaborations, and how we move trauma research forward together.”