The CTSI’s Decentralized Research InnoVation and Evaluation (DRIVE) program focuses on overcoming barriers to decentralized and remotely conducted research—defined as research that engages participants from where they live, work, or receive routine healthcare rather than through visits to academic research sites.
Although decentralized and remote studies offer great promise for improving access to research, these studies also raise unique scientific, operationally, and ethical challenges. Our program aims to develop, test, and share innovative strategies that will make decentralized and remote studies more effective, efficient, accessible, and responsive to the people and communities they serve.
DRIVE focuses on innovations to address common challenges with engaging or retaining study participants, maintaining effective community partnerships, transmitting and integrating study data, protecting privacy and security, and providing research infrastructure in decentralized studies. Each DRIVE project draws on a community-engaged framework and is designed with dissemination in mind, so that successful tools, methods, and resources can benefit research teams and participants beyond UCSF.
Our DRIVE program approach ensures that projects:
- Identify important challenges in decentralized and remote research
- Incorporate input from participants, community partners, and researchers
- Design and test innovative solutions in real-world research settings
- Evaluate the effectiveness, feasibility, and broader applicability of solutions
- Share successful approaches with the wider clinical and translational science community
Remote Engagement to Advance Community in researcH (REACH) Project
DRIVE’s initial research project is the Remote Engagement to Advance Community in researcH (REACH) project, which focused on all-remote studies that involve little or no face-to-face contact between participants and research teams. REACH is developing and testing digital strategies to foster connection, shared purpose, and community among participants in all-remote studies, while balancing attention to privacy, participant burden, and scientific integrity