April 10, 2020
It has been a while since I provided an overall update of the efforts of CRAC Teams. But we have so much to report!!! The scale of this effort has ballooned so dramatically and so quickly that it has been hard to keep up! Honestly, I am personally overwhelmed by the outpouring of volunteerism that has taken hold of our institution, through this organization and many others. You all are incredible.
In the past week, the overall subscriber base of this group has grown to >660 members. We now have 8 active projects and a similar number that are at various stages of development. Calls for Project volunteers have yielded a total of 138 participants, either as officers/project managers or as volunteers deployed to NYP hospitals (more on that below). What’s more, in doing the work we are doing, we have established a high level of trust with senior administrators within CUIMC, Columbia University, and NYP Hospital. Dozens of senior administrators have expressed their appreciation and admiration for your efforts. You should be proud.
The efforts of CRAC Teams have started to be highlighted in multiple forums, including this and this.
Our organization is prominently featured on the new Columbia-wide website for COVID-19 resources!
Finally, you can receive more frequent news via our Twitter feed: @Columbia_CRAC
But the most exciting thing to me is that we have NEW PROJECTS for your consideration!!! If you would like to help with any of these, please click the links below and fill in the form.
Effect of COVID-19 on transplant outcome (Project 18)
We are launching a new project to help a Columbia researcher study the impact of sars-cov-2 infection on transplant recipients. Transplant patients undergo long-term treatment with immunosuppressive agents. On the one hand, this could increase their risk of contracting COVID-19. On the other hand, a major component of the pathology the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) associated with severe cases of COVID-19 arises in response to “cytokine storm”, which is a hyper-immune response. Therefore, immunosuppressive agents may have diverging effects in the setting of COVID-19. Columbia is leading a large consortium of 20 hospitals/centers to study outcomes in this setting.
In order to collect data from this effort, we are looking to build and maintain a RedCap Database to handle patient data in an IRB-approved, HIPAA compliant manner. The RedCap Database will be used to collect and maintain data from 20 hospitals/centers! The primary focus of the project is on liver transplant patients, but the effort will also include other transplant patient information for larger potential collaborations in the future. There is significant urgency to this effort, which should start as soon as we assemble this team. If you are interested in contributing to this effort, please apply through this form.
In addition, we have two other needs for database developers. First, to assist with the ongoing efforts of Project 1 (see below) and second to help with management CRAC Teams personnel information. We are using the same single form above to find candidates for all of these positions.
Blog writer position
We are creating a blog to spread the word about our organizational structure, workflow, efforts to build projects, and lessons learned so that other medical centers and hospitals can copy our approach. We will be looking for volunteers with a knack for blogging, scientific writing and storytelling. If you are interested, please apply through this link.
And don’t forget to tell your colleagues about CRAC teams. New members can sign up through our website.
And now, finally, without further ado… Here’s what we (and you!) have been up to this past week!
Project 1 – IRB Data management
Project manager Haotian “Howie” Wu oversaw the development and implementation of a new database for managing the status of IRB protocols at CUIMC. This effort has entered into a steady, but routine, workflow. Of the 6000+ IRB protocols, we (CRAC+IRB staff) are now working through just a few remaining protocols that need to be assessed, tracked, updated, and recorded. Going forward, there are plans to build out components for monitoring and assessment, but otherwise this project has entered steady-state.
Project 4 - Biobank
The Biobank volunteer team expanded this week to 15 members in order to keep up with the sample processing workload. In total, our volunteers have helped process 4100 serum samples, 2100 plasma samples, 2100 buffy coat samples! Here a few pictures from this effort!
Project 5 – Emergency Response Team
Led by Fei Song, this project is fully active with a response team on call to assist with any equipment failures on CUIMC campus.
Project 8 - COVID19 Research Data Hub
This week, a University wide leadership committee selected CRAC Teams to take charge of the design and implementation of an overarching resource of information for COVID-19 related efforts across our institution. Led by Howie Wu, the volunteer team now comprises 8 members and is hurling headlong into a critical 72 hours period before the first major deadline. So far, the group has manually compiled and curated two early datasets of investigators and projects across the CU campus using existing data that were collected ad-hoc over the past month; identified key information that needs to be systematically collected; and developed a survey and accompanying strategy to do so on a rapid and long-term basis. In the next 72 hours, the group will leverage the external leadership council to rapidly disseminate standardized surveys and systematically collect responses from all schools. Hopefully by the next update, we will have a searchable database with a web-based UI to share with anyone with a UNI!
Project 9 - Virtual COVID-19 Symposium
CRAC Teams has taken over organization of the weekly virtual COVID-19 symposium at Columbia, in collaboration with Andrea Califano. In its second week, it reached the 1000 person registration capacity and up to 500 people were in attendance at one time! In collaboration with the Zuckerman Institute, CRAC volunteers helped launch a new website for this effort. Volunteers have assembled into teams to alternate weeks for organizing. The teams manage participant and speaker organization, the Zoom platform, as well as publicity.
Project 11 - NYP Hospital Assistance
In what has become by far our largest effort to date, this week we completed the launch of a round-the-clock volunteer effort at four New York Presbyterian Hospital sites around NYC. The first volunteers showed up for shifts last Tuesday morning and since then, we have covered three 8-hour shifts per day, 7 days week at all four hospitals. In total our group has covered 74 shifts since the start of this effort. Over the course of this week, we have transitioned leadership of this effort to: Project Manager Prof. Samuel Sternberg; Scheduling Manager Andrew Del Colle; Hospital Managers Kacey Ronaldson, Leinys Santos Baez, Ilana Stone, Andreacarola Urso, Isabella Canal Delgado, Kiran Salman, Amanda Decker; and finally hotline volunteers Isabel Goncalves, Jacqueline de Vegvar, Nick Giangreco, Stephanie Erjavec, Daniella Garcia Rosales, Andrew Ressler, and Luke Beasley.
Next week, we will be expanding services to include additional activities, including distributing food and meals to hospital workers. If we can sign up enough volunteers, we will expand to new hospital sites as well, including in Queens and Brooklyn. So if you have not already signed up, please consider doing so using this form.
Finally, we are working to plan several exciting new Projects to come online next week that I am looking forward to sharing.
It has been a while since I provided an overall update of the efforts of CRAC Teams. But we have so much to report!!! The scale of this effort has ballooned so dramatically and so quickly that it has been hard to keep up! Honestly, I am personally overwhelmed by the outpouring of volunteerism that has taken hold of our institution, through this organization and many others. You all are incredible.
In the past week, the overall subscriber base of this group has grown to >660 members. We now have 8 active projects and a similar number that are at various stages of development. Calls for Project volunteers have yielded a total of 138 participants, either as officers/project managers or as volunteers deployed to NYP hospitals (more on that below). What’s more, in doing the work we are doing, we have established a high level of trust with senior administrators within CUIMC, Columbia University, and NYP Hospital. Dozens of senior administrators have expressed their appreciation and admiration for your efforts. You should be proud.
The efforts of CRAC Teams have started to be highlighted in multiple forums, including this and this.
Our organization is prominently featured on the new Columbia-wide website for COVID-19 resources!
Finally, you can receive more frequent news via our Twitter feed: @Columbia_CRAC
But the most exciting thing to me is that we have NEW PROJECTS for your consideration!!! If you would like to help with any of these, please click the links below and fill in the form.
Effect of COVID-19 on transplant outcome (Project 18)
We are launching a new project to help a Columbia researcher study the impact of sars-cov-2 infection on transplant recipients. Transplant patients undergo long-term treatment with immunosuppressive agents. On the one hand, this could increase their risk of contracting COVID-19. On the other hand, a major component of the pathology the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) associated with severe cases of COVID-19 arises in response to “cytokine storm”, which is a hyper-immune response. Therefore, immunosuppressive agents may have diverging effects in the setting of COVID-19. Columbia is leading a large consortium of 20 hospitals/centers to study outcomes in this setting.
In order to collect data from this effort, we are looking to build and maintain a RedCap Database to handle patient data in an IRB-approved, HIPAA compliant manner. The RedCap Database will be used to collect and maintain data from 20 hospitals/centers! The primary focus of the project is on liver transplant patients, but the effort will also include other transplant patient information for larger potential collaborations in the future. There is significant urgency to this effort, which should start as soon as we assemble this team. If you are interested in contributing to this effort, please apply through this form.
In addition, we have two other needs for database developers. First, to assist with the ongoing efforts of Project 1 (see below) and second to help with management CRAC Teams personnel information. We are using the same single form above to find candidates for all of these positions.
Blog writer position
We are creating a blog to spread the word about our organizational structure, workflow, efforts to build projects, and lessons learned so that other medical centers and hospitals can copy our approach. We will be looking for volunteers with a knack for blogging, scientific writing and storytelling. If you are interested, please apply through this link.
And don’t forget to tell your colleagues about CRAC teams. New members can sign up through our website.
And now, finally, without further ado… Here’s what we (and you!) have been up to this past week!
Project 1 – IRB Data management
Project manager Haotian “Howie” Wu oversaw the development and implementation of a new database for managing the status of IRB protocols at CUIMC. This effort has entered into a steady, but routine, workflow. Of the 6000+ IRB protocols, we (CRAC+IRB staff) are now working through just a few remaining protocols that need to be assessed, tracked, updated, and recorded. Going forward, there are plans to build out components for monitoring and assessment, but otherwise this project has entered steady-state.
Project 4 - Biobank
The Biobank volunteer team expanded this week to 15 members in order to keep up with the sample processing workload. In total, our volunteers have helped process 4100 serum samples, 2100 plasma samples, 2100 buffy coat samples! Here a few pictures from this effort!
Project 5 – Emergency Response Team
Led by Fei Song, this project is fully active with a response team on call to assist with any equipment failures on CUIMC campus.
Project 8 - COVID19 Research Data Hub
This week, a University wide leadership committee selected CRAC Teams to take charge of the design and implementation of an overarching resource of information for COVID-19 related efforts across our institution. Led by Howie Wu, the volunteer team now comprises 8 members and is hurling headlong into a critical 72 hours period before the first major deadline. So far, the group has manually compiled and curated two early datasets of investigators and projects across the CU campus using existing data that were collected ad-hoc over the past month; identified key information that needs to be systematically collected; and developed a survey and accompanying strategy to do so on a rapid and long-term basis. In the next 72 hours, the group will leverage the external leadership council to rapidly disseminate standardized surveys and systematically collect responses from all schools. Hopefully by the next update, we will have a searchable database with a web-based UI to share with anyone with a UNI!
Project 9 - Virtual COVID-19 Symposium
CRAC Teams has taken over organization of the weekly virtual COVID-19 symposium at Columbia, in collaboration with Andrea Califano. In its second week, it reached the 1000 person registration capacity and up to 500 people were in attendance at one time! In collaboration with the Zuckerman Institute, CRAC volunteers helped launch a new website for this effort. Volunteers have assembled into teams to alternate weeks for organizing. The teams manage participant and speaker organization, the Zoom platform, as well as publicity.
Project 11 - NYP Hospital Assistance
In what has become by far our largest effort to date, this week we completed the launch of a round-the-clock volunteer effort at four New York Presbyterian Hospital sites around NYC. The first volunteers showed up for shifts last Tuesday morning and since then, we have covered three 8-hour shifts per day, 7 days week at all four hospitals. In total our group has covered 74 shifts since the start of this effort. Over the course of this week, we have transitioned leadership of this effort to: Project Manager Prof. Samuel Sternberg; Scheduling Manager Andrew Del Colle; Hospital Managers Kacey Ronaldson, Leinys Santos Baez, Ilana Stone, Andreacarola Urso, Isabella Canal Delgado, Kiran Salman, Amanda Decker; and finally hotline volunteers Isabel Goncalves, Jacqueline de Vegvar, Nick Giangreco, Stephanie Erjavec, Daniella Garcia Rosales, Andrew Ressler, and Luke Beasley.
Next week, we will be expanding services to include additional activities, including distributing food and meals to hospital workers. If we can sign up enough volunteers, we will expand to new hospital sites as well, including in Queens and Brooklyn. So if you have not already signed up, please consider doing so using this form.
Finally, we are working to plan several exciting new Projects to come online next week that I am looking forward to sharing.