GuideStar Clinical Trials Management, a company providing support services and strategies for clinical research programs around the U.S., and the Alliance for Clinical Research Excellence and Safety (ACRES), a multi-sector, nonprofit organization building a multi-stakeholder-driven integrated global system for clinical research, have partnered to expand site accreditation and uniformity across the clinical research community to promote and reward excellence. 

GuideStar will collaborate with ACRES on its Site Accreditation Standards Initiative, a project to promote professionalism and sustainability among sites conducting research. The initiative—currently assembling teams across multiple performance domains including: patient and subject engagement and protection; site personnel; research integrity; facilities; information systems and data management; management and administration; as well as quality management—focuses on collecting and developing standards for research sites. It also is establishing independent third-party accreditation and offers opportunities for research sites to undergo self and peer evaluations. 

GuideStar is knowledgeable in research operations from years of experience in the industry and working with nearly 100 health systems, hospitals and academic medical centers and will lend its expertise, including best practices, to the ACRES initiative. GuideStar will collaborate with other ACRES Allies in creating site-sustainability standards, registration of sites in a global network, site optics for self-review and third party oversight of accreditation. 

Shirley Trainor-Thomas, chief marketing officer for GuideStar, expressed her enthusiasm about the partnership and the potential it brings. “As a clinical research services provider, the GuideStar team constantly strives to bring our clients guidance to optimize their research programs. By partnering with ACRES, we will contribute the solutions and best practices that promote sustainability for research sites around the globe. We are excited to join others in the industry in playing a role in this very important initiative for research sites and patients alike.”

Greg Koski, ACRES co-founder and CEO, said, “There can be no global system for clinical research without well-prepared clinical research sites, sites of excellence. To create a world of high-performing professional sites we must invest in them and provide both incentives and rewards for their efforts.  It is imperative for everyone that sites be given the tools and resources to help them achieve these goals, assistance which GuideStar is wonderfully qualified to give and we wholeheartedly welcome them to our ACRES group of Allies.”