Crisis teamwork: Hospitals, WSU partner up on clinical trial work
Great minds think alike, and a group of them are working together to bring clinical trials to metro Detroit that may lead to potential treatments or vaccines for COVID-19.
Doctors from four hospital systems —Henry Ford Health System, Ascension Michigan, Beaumont and the Detroit Medical Center — along with Wayne State University, which collectively treat millions of patients a year — are part of the group announced Friday.
“The whole idea is we want to collaborate in the region, apply for the new trials and be part of discovering best practices and treatments for COVID-19,” said Dr. William “Bill” O’Neill, an in
terventional cardiologist at Henry Ford Health System, who is world-renowned for groundbreaking treatments and the person who organized the group.
“We’re going to be very competitive,” O’Neill said. “We want to figure out how to optimally treat these patients, to establish protocols and systems so we can all do things effectively and, very importantly, to quickly track outcomes.”
Joining O’Neill are cardiologists Dr. Shukri David from Ascension and Dr. Amr Abbas from Beaumont Health, Dr. Brian O’Neil, an emergency specialist from DMC and Dr. Phil Levy, an emergency department specialist from Wayne State University.
“This viral pandemic has no boundaries,” said David, chair of Cardiovascular Services at Ascension Michigan. “By combining the resources of our medical community, we will offer research opportunities that no one institution alone can defeat. Our efforts are stronger when we work together.”
Their collaboration to save lives is not new.
Four-years ago, O’Neill rallied a group of cardiologists who joined forces for an initiative to lower the death rate from cardiogenic shock, a potentially fatal side effect of massive heart attacks. Together they showed a specific treatment protocol increased patient survival in southeast Michigan from 50% to more than 70%. The protocol is now the basis for the National Cardiogenic Shock Initiative, used by cardiologists to save lives across the United States.
When COVID-19 hit, O’Neill, who is also medical director of the Henry Ford Center for Structural Heart Disease, reached out to the others and Henry Ford leadership suggesting they use their previous collaborative experience to mobilize against this new threat.
“We moved the needle on survival in cardiogenic shock for the first time in 20 years with our collaboration then,” said Dr. Brian O’Neil. “We hope to replicate that success on a much larger scale in our battle with COVID-19 today and support our colleagues who are on the front lines.”
The COVID-19 collaborators are working directly in support of infectious disease experts at their respective hospitals.
The group is hoping to receive National Institutes of Health approval to bring two specific COVID-19 trials to southeast Michigan:
• Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine: The company’s chief executive officer said Moderna may provide the vaccine to a few people, which could include healthcare workers, as early as this fall. A healthy volunteer received the first COVID-19 vaccine March 16. The company estimates it could take 18 months to make it commercially available, if the trials prove successful.
• Takeda’s hyperimmune globulin: Using plasma from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, the company is evaluating a treatment that’s effective on other severe acute viral respiratory infections.
“Big research studies need time, but they also need a certain number of patients to prove the new treatment is number one: feasible; number two: effective; number three: safe,” said Abbas, who is an interventional and structural cardiologist and director of the Cardiovascular Research Program at Beaumont Hospital, Royal Oak. “For us to reach that perfect scenario, we need collaboration on that level among our hospital systems.”
Once trials are initiated at health systems, participation takes place through the patients’ treating physicians.
“We hope our work here will last well into the future, should COVID-19 continue to be a threat,” said Levy, chief innovation officer of the Wayne State University Physician Group and assistant vice president of Translational Science and Clinical Research Innovation for Wayne State University. “By combining forces, we can marshal greater research capabilities to effectively test vaccines and treatments to combat this virus.”