Wednesday, March 22, 2017

Introducing the PLUS Study


The George Institute of Global Health, Sydney, is our newest client and the coordinating centre for the PLUS Study.  PLUS kicked off in February and will begin taking enrolments in July.

Another fluid resuscitation study for us, the PLUS Study is a multi-centre, blinded, RCT.

PLUS tests the hypothesis that:
"in a heterogeneous population of critically ill adults, random assignment to Plasma-Lyte 148® for intravascular volume resuscitation and crystalloid fluid therapy in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) results in different 90-day all-cause mortality when compared with random assignment to 0.9% sodium chloride (saline) for the same treatment."
Of note:
  • with 8,800 patients this will be our biggest study
  • the study uses our inventory module to track all treatment from shipment to disposal
  • the study will initially run in Australia and New Zealand with other countries coming on board later
Next Tuesday I am off to Sydney to meet with the project manager and chief investigator for a sanity check which will ensure the project is going in the right direction. In the meeting we will take a strategic look at the project, discuss the more complex issues in the project and and check-in on our assumptions. I always enjoy these get togethers and once we are underway I find it important to make sure we are all walking along the same path with the project.

It’s always good to see people face to face and I regularly pop across the Tasman to meet with the project admins or join in a team meeting, even if just for an hour, although sometimes I can spend six hours with a project manager, nutting out detail. Mostly I can get across the ditch, and back, in a day but I am always happy to stay longer and use the opportunity to catch up with some of our other trials that are underway.