Dean Mary Klotman, MD, announced that Adrian Hernandez, MD, professor of medicine (Cardiology), will serve as the new vice dean for clinical research for the Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Hernandez began his service as vice dean on September 5, 2017.
As vice dean for clinical research, Hernandez will have direct responsibility for advancing the clinical research mission of the School of Medicine. The School of Medicine has one of the largest clinical research portfolios in the country among medical schools. Hernandez will work with leaders in single and multi-site based human research, patient care delivery, information technology, and health data science within School of Medicine departments, and centers and institutes including the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI), Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and Margolis Center for Health Policy, in order to achieve the vision of advancing health and executing a coordinated strategy in clinical research to evolve the model of care and improve outcomes. He will oversee the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Duke Health, the Duke Office of Clinical Research, the Office of Regulatory Affairs & Quality, and the Research Integrity Office.
Hernandez currently serves as director of Health Services and Outcomes Research and is a faculty associate director of the DCRI. He has extensive experience in clinical research ranging from clinical trials to outcomes and health services research. He leads research programs focused on understanding population health, generating real-world evidence, and improving patient-centered outcomes through development of new therapies and better care delivery in the national health system.
Hernandez is the coordinating center principal investigator for multiple networks and clinical trials such as the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Heart Failure Clinical Research Network, PCORI’s National Patient-Centered Clinical Research Network (PCORnet) and the NIH’s Health System Collaboratory. A central aim of these networks is to transform clinical research by uniting patients, clinicians, health systems, and electronic health data to improve population health and decision making. Hernandez has more than 450 published articles in top peer-reviewed journals including the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, and Lancet.