Project Overview

Problem:

• Most cancer patients who enroll in clinical trials learn of these opportunities from their providers or from study staff, but most hospitals do not run trials.
• Existing patient-facing tools for clinical trial matching typically require a challenging amount of manual clinical data entry and / or manual review of trials.
• Providers do not have tools built in their workflow to allow for efficient clinical trial matching. As a result, providers often have to use the same patient-facing tools and manually enter data and / or manually review trials. 

Description: 

• A cancer patient identifies clinical trials for which she may be eligible. She uses tools that she can access directly, and she does not have to do manual transcription of clinical data. Rather, the patient facing matching tools leverage structured patient data from the electronic health record (EHR) to assess clinical trial eligibility. 
• A provider identifies clinical trials for which her patient may be eligible. She uses tools that she can access directly in her workflow and does not have to do manual transcription of clinical data. Rather, there is a tool built into the EHR system that allows the provider to send structured patient data straight from the EHR to a matching service to assess potential matches. 

Target Outcome:

• Create integrated, automated, site-agnostic clinical trial matching by developing open data standards and open APIs that enable interoperable, scalable, and accessible clinical trial matching services
  • Drive awareness of and commitment to use these standards in the industry
  • Thereby improve clinical trial matching for patients and their care teams

Value: 

• Patients and providers can easily identify potentially lifesaving therapies much faster with tools that leverage structured data from the EHR.
• Matching services will be able to receive more accurate, complete, structured, and computable patient data using mCODE and will be able to narrow down a more accurate list of potential clinical trials. 
• Patient portals will be able to easily send data to matching services and will be able to present clinical trial matches back to their clients. 
• EHR vendors will be able to enable a service that will help their clients treat patients.
• Researchers can find more patients for their clinical trials.