Johns Hopkins Medicine, Greater Baltimore Medical Center and Anne Arundel Health System have formed a partnership that they say will help bring cutting edge research into use with patients faster.

The new network, called the Johns Hopkins Clinical Research Network, will hook up academic and community-based clinical researchers.

A main purpose of the group will be to make clinical trials available to patients who don’t usually have access to them at their community hospital. That will also create a larger patient pool for research.

The end result, the hospitals say, will be moving diagnostic, treatment and disease-prevention advances from the research phase to patient use more quickly.

More institutions will be added over time.

 “The JHCRN is a unique research resource that increases patient access to innovative therapies and outcomes research in their own local communities. It also empowers physicians to design and conduct a broad array of research projects relevant to their communities,” said Dr. Charles M. Balch, the group’s director and professor of surgery and oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in a statement.

The initial focus of the group will be on expanding cancer-related clinical trials and diabetes and surgical studies. Other areas for the future include intensive care; cardiovascular, neuropsychiatric, brain and spine diseases; and radiology and nuclear medicine studies.