Coordinating center to improve acute pain care

HEAL Clinical Coordinating Resource Center for the Pain Management Effectiveness Research Network

NIH-funded research Duke University · NIH-11179276

This project helps run clinical trials aimed at finding safer, more effective ways to manage short-term (acute) pain for people recovering from injury or surgery.

Quick facts

Grant typeNIH-funded research
Study typeNIH-funded research
Funding institutionDuke University NIH-funded
Lab location1 site (Durham, United States)
Project IDNIH-11179276 on NIH RePORTER

What this research studies

This effort provides the leadership and shared services that let multiple hospitals run coordinated clinical trials on acute pain treatments. Teams at Duke, Vanderbilt, Utah, Johns Hopkins, and Tufts support protocol design, single IRB review, data management, statistical analysis, and safety monitoring. The center will support ongoing HEAL Pain ERN trials and select two new trials, helping them enroll patients and collect reliable results. For patients, it means trials are better organized, faster to start, and more likely to produce usable answers about pain care.

Who could benefit from this research

Good fit: Ideal candidates are people experiencing short-term (acute) pain—for example after surgery or injury—who are willing and able to enroll in a trial at a participating site.

Not a fit: People without acute pain or those who cannot travel to participating medical centers are unlikely to gain direct benefit from these trials.

Why it matters

Potential benefit: If successful, this work could speed the development of safer, more effective acute pain treatments and make new options available to patients sooner.

How similar studies have performed: Previous multisite pain research and HEAL-supported trials have produced useful findings about pain management, but more coordinated trials are still needed to answer key questions.

Where this research is happening

Durham, United States

Researchers

About this research

  1. This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
  2. Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
  3. For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page below.
Last reviewed 2026-06-13 by the Find a Trial editorial team. Information on this page is for educational purposes and is not medical advice. Always consult qualified healthcare professionals about clinical trial participation.