IllumiCare, a provider of point-of-care healthcare information technology solutions, added the Trials App to its Smart Ribbon. It is designed to automate the process of connecting patients to local or hybrid clinical trials during an appointment or consultation.
Smart Ribbon is a non-intrusive thread of information that ‘floats’ above a patient’s electronic health record (HER) at point-of-care, helping providers with different actions and information. The Trials App prods providers in real-time if the patient they are consulting with meets established referral criteria for a specific clinical trial.
GT LaBorde, IllumiCare CEO, told Outsourcing-Pharma that trials have a number of tools at their disposal to reach patients, but the doctor-patient relationship can be among the most powerful.
“Patients are hearing about clinical trials through unsolicited emails, digital advertising, postcards, and even patient portal messages, but the most important messenger that a clinical trial is a good therapeutic option is their own provider,” LaBorde said. “In fact, 71% of patients want to speak to their provider before enrolling in a clinical trial—that conversation doesn’t occur as frequently as it could or should because providers don’t recognize the option exists for applicable patients.”
llumiCare’s Trials App works within existing EHR systems to alert providers about trials that fit a particular patient’s criteria at the time that most fits the conversation about treatment options. The technology also takes the matching another step by connecting those patients to trial coordinators for follow-up with one click.
“Meetings between doctors and patients provide a critical opportunity to determine which clinical trials may serve as a therapeutic option for a patient, yet historically, this information is either hard to access or is provided through general, obtrusive alert systems in the EHR,” said Mukul Mehra, chief medical officer of IllumiCare. “The Trials App presents patient-specific clinical trials for consideration within the clinician’s workflow, streamlining the process from awareness to enrollment for providers, study coordinators, and patients.”
Coordinators can access a full view of patients who have expressed interest in a trial, control referral criteria in the app, and sort data to match criteria for reports. They also can prioritize studies, giving them control over recruitment without EHR programming (making it easier to glimpse and track a patient’s journey).
LaBorde added that the Trials App improves patient recruitment by automating the process of physicians referring patients to studies.
“The golden handoff in clinical trials occurs when a treating provider refers a patient to a local coordinator for follow-up; today, this is a painfully manual process, and the Trials App enables that process in a floating window, connecting all players within clinical trials into one seamless solution,” he said. “Data shows that patients who enroll in a clinical trial referred by their provider have higher enrollment, participation, and completion than someone who finds the trial on their own. This App will amplify these conversations between provider and patient, increasing patient recruitment while expediting it.”
LaBorde added that contract research organizations (CROs) and sponsors can utilize the technology to enroll and close studies more quickly.