Collaborative Spine Research Foundation Invites All Stakeholders to Participate in Setting Research Agenda

ROSEMONT, Ill., July 2, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Collaborative Spine Research Foundation (Collaborative Spine), a nonprofit fundraising and grants administration organization dedicated to advancing the science and practice of the highest quality spine care, today announced it is seeking input from all stakeholders to help develop its research agenda.

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All interested parties—including medical professionals and other providers of health care services, clinical research professionals, health service and biomedical industry, patients and patient advocates, and health care policy professionals—are encouraged to first review a backgrounder (http://www.aans.org/CSRFAdvisoryCouncilOverview.PDF) on the types of research that the foundation will fund and criteria for setting research priorities, and then submit their recommendations through an online questionnaire (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSRF_Questionnaire) as to which clinical research topics should be given top consideration. The questionnaire is open now through August 15, 2012.

All stakeholder recommendations will be reviewed by the foundation's Research Agenda Advisory Committee—comprised of highly qualified representatives from clinical and academic medicine, the clinical spine research community, the medical technology industry, and health services and insurance organizations. The Collaborative Spine board of directors will formalize the Research Agenda based on Advisory Committee recommendations, and will publish its top ten clinical research priorities for spine care in early fall 2012.

The Collaborative Spine Research Foundation was co-founded in December 2011 by the American Association of Neurosurgeons/Neurosurgery Research and Education Foundation (NREF) and Orthopaedic Research and Education Foundation (OREF). The Collaborative Spine board of directors consists of equal numbers of orthopaedic surgeons and neurosurgeons, as well as a physician from a third medical specialty, currently anesthesiology. The foundation's application for 501(c) (3) status is pending. For more information about the co-founding organizations, please visit www.aans.org/en/NREF.aspx and www.oref.org

SOURCE Collaborative Spine Research Foundation