OPERATIONS CORE

I-HEAL's infrastructure was established with the opportunity for mentorship occurring across individual projects and cores. As such, every meeting of a project or core serves as an opportunity for project-based learning and mentorship. For each project, senior investigators (Full Professors) are paired with mid-career (Associate Professors) or early career (Assistant Professors) professionals to acquire skills in funded project execution from regulatory to dissemination. The Operations Core facilitates and tracks educational series presentations, formal and semi-formal education and mentorship. Semi-formal and formal mentoring and education opportunities across I-HEAL in year 2 of the grant included 77 trainings and a reach of 534. The Operations Core facilitates trainings and tracks formal and semi-formal mentorship and education throughout the lifecycle of the grant. Examples include:

Stakeholder engagement and qualitative methods are crucial to I-HEAL’s research. We include the voices of those who experience the challenges that I-HEAL aims to address so that innovations can be implemented and impactful. The Operations team is crucial to integrating individuals with lived experience into our study. The team:

Operations team members provide ongoing meeting support for all programs and cores. They identify meeting times, develop agendas, and provide notetaking and action item follow-up. The team also facilitates large group meetings, including our Kickoff Meeting that occurred in May 2024. We are currently in process of planning another engagement meeting that will occur in September 2026

Stakeholder communications in I-HEAL include both formal reporting and consumer-based information sharing. The Operation Core collaborates across projects and cores to provide timely updates to our funding source (The Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program within the Department of Defense). We also develop communications for internal stakeholders (our lived experience partners and core research team) and broader audiences through platforms like our website and social media.

The four projects and four cores are comprised of I-HEAL team members whose knowledge and skills go beyond neuropsychology and traumatic brain injury. Our team’s diverse skillsets include implementation science, health economics, product design, qualitative and quantitative methods, project management, and more. The Operations Core supports I-HEAL’s research by staffing the project; team members provide job listings, recruit, conduct interviews, hire, and onboard new colleagues.

Ensuring the safety of Veterans, Service members, and other participants is a key responsibility of the Operations Core. The team works closely with three different Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to ensure minimal risk to participants who engage in our study and data is secure. We also collaborate with other VA departments to develop data use agreements, discuss technology transfer, and more.

A large part of regulatory compliance is also making sure that we closely track and remain transparent with our funders about spending. The Operations Core is dedicated to providing high levels of accountability and promoting trust with stakeholders as we execute ongoing study efforts and support emerging needs in response to I-HEAL’s research and innovations.