Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and Maine Medical Center have received nearly $4 million in federal funds aimed at expanding access to cardiac surgery clinical trials.
Researchers will use the funds, from the National Institutes of Health, to connect with cardiac patients living in rural areas of New Hampshire and Maine.
Rural patients are often underrepresented in clinical trials, said Alexander Iribarne, a cardiac surgeon and director of cardiac surgery research at DHMC.
That’s a challenge for researchers who are aiming to study the success of new medical devices or procedures across diverse populations.
It’s also a challenge for rural patients, Iribarne said, because they have less access to potentially groundbreaking new therapies.
Rates of cardiovascular disease in rural areas of northern New England are higher than those in the overall population.