Development and implementation of a performance measure tool in an academic pediatric research network

Background: The Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) is a federally funded multi-center research network. To promote high quality research within the network, it is important to establish evaluation tools to measure performance of the research sites. Purpose: To describe the collaborative development of a site performance measure tool "report card" in an academic pediatric research network. To display report card template information and discuss the successes and challenges of the report cards. Development and implementation of the network performance measure tool: The PECARN Quality Assurance Subcommittee and the PECARN data center were responsible for the development and implementation of the report cards. Using a Balanced Scorecard format, four key metrics were identified to align with PECARN's research goals. Performance indicators were defined for each of these metrics. After two years of development, the final report cards have been implemented annually since 2005. Protocol submission time to the Institutional Review Board (IRB) improved between 2005 and 2007. Mean overall report card scores for site report cards increased during this period with less variance between highest and lowest performing sites indicating overall improvement. Conclusions: Report cards have helped PECARN sites and investigators focus on performance improvement and may have contributed to improved operations and efficiencies within the network.