Moving from to : A collaborative continuous quality improvement process for advancing Clinical and Translational Science.

Structured processes to improve the quality and impact of clinical and translational research are a required element of the Clinical and Translational Sciences Awards (CTSA) program and are central to awardees' strategic management efforts. Quality improvement is often assumed to be an ordinary consequence of evaluation programs, in which standardized metrics are tabulated and reported externally. Yet evaluation programs may not actually be very effective at driving quality improvement: required metrics may lack direct relevance; they lack incentive to improve on areas of relative strength; and the validity of inter-site comparability may be limited.

Fetal aortic valvuloplasty as the first step in a complex therapeutic strategy.

Background: Fetal aortic valvuloplasty (FAV) is proposed to prevent hypoplastic left heart syndrome due to fetal critical aortic stenosis.

Objective: to report our experience on FAV as the first step in a complex therapeutic strategy.

Method: Series of patients with FAV over an 18-year period.

Challenges in catalyzing and sustaining research in translational science.

Advancing the new field of translational science and developing innovative solutions to overcome translational roadblocks are key priorities of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) Program of the National Center for Advancing Translational Science (NCATS). However, interpreting this emerging concept of "translational science" (TS) as a field of inquiry distinct from "translational research" (TR) and developing real-world investigations in TS can be challenging. The goal of this paper is to share the obstacles the Einstein-Montefiore CTSA hub has faced in generating institutional interest and research in TS and to present potential strategies for addressing them.