Research Assistant - CBM

Responsibilities

• Recruits subjects and contacts hospital-site staff to identify potential participants.
• Reviews medical records to determine patient eligibility for studies.
• Explains study procedures to patients and family members, obtains informed consent, and schedules and confirms appointments for interviews.
• Data collection includes conducting on-site and off-site interviews, retrieving and recording data from medical records, and entering data onto appropriate forms.
• Alerts supervisor to participant responses indicating the need for professional intervention.
• Maintains contact with study participants to keep addresses and phone numbers current.
• Assists in the development of data tables, graphs, and charts and prepares materials for presentations.
• Data management involves assisting in the collection of new data, coding, cleaning, transcribing, recording, entering, and storing all data collected; coordinating data collection with other research staff; generating reports; performing literature searches; transcribing and coding taped interviews; maintaining an inventory of data collection forms; and assisting in the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data by coding verbatim interviews.
• Performs various record-keeping tasks such as filing consent forms and other data collection forms on all eligible participants.
• Supports scholarly activities by attending meetings, taking minutes as assigned, and performing other duties as directed.

Requirements

• Work requires communication and mathematics skills normally acquired in four years of college, plus three to six months of related work experience.
• Prefer graduate of or student in graduate program in neurosciences, nursing, psychology, engineering, social work, public health or related field.
• Knowledge of basic computer hardware in addition to software such as Microsoft Office, statistical programs such as Stata or SPSS, and/or relevant engineering or mathematical programs such as Matlab, as appropriate.
• Familiarity with medical, engineering or health services research terminology and basic research/statistical methodology is required, as appropriate to the position.
• Ability to accurately review and enter project data and to concentrate and pay close attention to detail for up to 75% of work time is required.
• Analytical ability is required to prepare reports, maintain data inventory, code, transcribe interviews, develop graphs, perform literature searches, negotiate systems in several hospitals and/or human service organizations, and identify concerns/responses of participants that require termination of interview or possible intervention.
• Strong interpersonal skills are needed to interact effectively with patients/family member dyads, physicians, other human service professionals, and a variety of supervisors for various research projects.
• Flexibility to coordinate scheduling with other project staff is needed.
• Proficient typing and administrative skills to transcribe data, prepare correspondence, and maintain files.
• Exercises independent judgment in assigned area of responsibility. May be expected to take leadership on certain project tasks.

Qualifications

• Normal office/research laboratory environment with little or no exposure to dust or extreme temperature.
• May involve travel to other hospital/research sites and possibly to participants’ homes.
• Interviews/experiments may require flexible day, evening, and/or weekend hours.