At Washington University (WU), more than 1,000 clinical studies begin every year. The ability of a study to recruit participants is often the deciding factor of the project’s success.
Volunteer for Health was developed by Janet B. McGill, M.D., M.A., FACE, Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism & Lipid Research in the late 1990’s as a way to provide a diabetic database for her research. It was called Volunteer for Health (VFH) as this was a volunteer group of people/patients who volunteered to participate in those studies. Eventually, this database was converted into an online research registry, now known as the Research Participant Registry (RPR) that consists of about 20,000 participants. VFH is a no-cost service thanks in part to funding provided by the Institute of Clinical and Translational Sciences (ICTS). This support allows Principal Investigators (PIs) to work with VFH on email blasts, social media posts, posters, recruitment plans and more…
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