Clinical Research Fellow in Cardiovascular Digital Health & Connected Care

Job description
Job summary

This is a clinical academic post to deliver and evaluate clinical service improvement within the Connected Care Hub (CCH) – a clinical centre of operations at Imperial College and NHS Trust in which Health Professionals run protocol-driven diagnostic, triage and management pathways based on incoming data from appropriate connected technologies. The CCH team identify care pathways that deliver better care, more cost-effectively and support them across widespread translational hurdles to system-wide adoption.

The appointed Fellow will work at the intersection of academia, clinical service transformation and industrial innovation – adopting a pathway-first approach when deploying digital and AI-based clinical technologies in real-world pathways.

Within this role, the appointed Fellow will have specific responsibility for day-to-day operation of CCB clinical study protocols using a smart digital stethoscope for cardiovascular disease diagnosis using artificial intelligence. This study is supported by the government’s prestigious NIHR Invention for Innovation Challenge Award and aims to transform cardiovascular disease diagnosis and care, with potentially transformative impact in the field.

This is a particularly exciting time to join Imperial College & NHS Trust and be part of its visionary digital transformation strategy now given added impetus in the COVID-19 era, including management of large studies in digital health involving real-world RCTs of AI-driven diagnostics, digital biomarker identification from wearable technologies and interrogation of pooled clinical and health economic datasets.

This post will involve close collaboration with the core CCB clinical team, and existing cardiac and other services in the major comorbid conditions. The postholder will be directly involved in research, clinical implementation and evaluation and will have access to opportunities to evolve leadership in the emerging digital optimisation of care and how best to evaluate and implement this. This year can underpin registering for a higher degree (MD/PhD).

Duties and responsibilities

With respect to the specific responsibility for day-to-day operation of study protocols using a smart digital stethoscope , these specific responsibilities will include:

• Site setup as part of a cluster randomised controlled trial in primary care
• Delivering training, running demonstrations, troubleshooting, supporting early-stage patient recruitment
• Full inclusion as one of the research team for completion of clinical pathway and presentations and publications of research at digital health conferences/in journals
• Supporting expansion of this and other studies into further phases, including national studies

The successful candidate will work closely with a team including clinical research fellows, allied health professionals and Trust leadership, and will gain experience in writing and executing research protocols (including but not limited to the application of new technologies in clinical pathways), contribute to academic publications and will develop a technical understanding of the wider digital health ecosystem beginning to thrive within the NHS. For example, within Imperial NHS, several novel remote monitoring and diagnostic pathways using novel technologies are live or being developed across heart failure, frailty (care home support), COPD, palpitations, pulmonary fibrosis, cardiac rehabilitation and other chronic conditions.

Responsibilities in connected care quality improvement streams:

• To contribute to writing, maintaining and supporting execution of SoPs for new clinical pathways
• Supporting the established clinical remote pathways and their development, including in trial settings
• Delegated co-ordination and administrative activities, including data management, to ensure the efficient running of protocols
• Establish and maintain good communication between all key stakeholders
• Involvement in writing applications for initial approvals and ensure on-going adherence to the requirements of the regulatory bodies i.e. NHS Research & Development, HRA (Health Research Authority), Medicines and the Research Ethics Committee (REC); and submit amendments as appropriate.

Essential requirements

• Medical qualification with registration at the General Medical Council
• Experience of driving/evaluating changes in clinical practice and hospital systems
• Clinical experience in different hospital and community specialties
• Understanding the pressures and challenges of General Practice
• Understanding how to change systems of healthcare delivery
• Excellent relationships with hospital care and support staff

Further information

This is a Full Time and Fixed Term post for 1 year based at the Hammersmith Campus, London (with travel to other campuses as required).

Salary upon appointment will also include an additional London Weighting Allowance of £2,162 per annum (pro rata if applicable)

Please note, if you’re not on an approved NHS training programme you will be appointed on the Clinical staff not holding consultant contracts salary scale.

As this post is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, a satisfactory Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check, at the appropriate level, will be required for the successful candidate.

Should you require any further details on the role please contact: Professor Nicholas Peters n.peters@imperial.ac.uk

The College is a proud signatory to the San-Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA),which means that in hiring and promotion decisions, we evaluate applicants on the quality of their work, not the journal impact factor where it is published. For more information, see: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-evaluation/

The College believes that the use of animals in research is vital to improve human and animal health and welfare. Animals may only be used in research programmes where their use is shown to be necessary for developing new treatments and making medical advances. Imperial is committed to ensuring that, in cases where this research is deemed essential, all animals in the College’s care are treated with full respect, and that all staff involved with this work show due consideration at every level. http://www.imperial.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/about-imperial-research/research-integrity/animal-research / 

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