There is a growing challenge for clinicians in oncology. As new clinical trial studies emerge and medical literature is published, it is nearly impossible to stay on top of all the latest cancer care data due to the proliferation of new information, and it is increasingly more difficult to align a patient’s unique factors to all the matching trial options.
Clinical Trials Offer Hope
As the incidence of cancer continues to grow and time constraints on oncologists intensify, the need for research and treatment innovation is more important than ever. Unfortunately, sometimes the standard (approved) treatment options are not proven options to cure or control certain types of cancer. In fact, for some, a clinical trial is their only hope.
Expanding Clinical Trial Options
The good news is that available medical trials are expanding in oncology. In 2017, over 262,000 studies were registered on clinicaltrials.gov, with an additional 18,000 studies anticipated by the end of 2018 . Which is great news for both patients and advancing available treatment options in oncology.
Expedite the Matching of Patient-Specific Options
As you can imagine, significant time is typically required to evaluate available clinical trials, analyze complex inclusion and exclusion criteria, and determine a patient’s eligibility for trials based on all the relevant information in the medical record. Manual screening for trial eligibility can take nearly 2 hours per patient. However, this can be reduced to nearly instantaneous results when leveraging artificial intelligence (AI).
One example of this is with the IBM Watson for Clinical Trial Matching, which is currently being used by the Mayo Clinic, Highlands Oncology Group, and Novartis to name a few. Leveraging a sophisticated AI platform, it analyzes structured and unstructured patient EMR data to help clinicians to more easily and quickly find a ranked list of clinical trials for an eligible patient.
Emerging AI Solutions
With the growing need for this type of solution, it’s expected that more and more AI technology will emerge to meet various needs in healthcare. According to MarketWatch “over 100 startup companies utilizing AI to develop biomedical products have emerged since 2014, with almost all existing large cap companies initiating AI development programs in order to keep up.”
Does your company have plans to implement an AI system in the near future? As one of the hottest trends in Healthcare technology, leveraging AI is definitely worth considering.
Perficient Partners with IBM Watson to Execute AI Solutions in Oncology
I’d be remiss not to mention that we’ve recently entered into an agreement with Watson IBM to be a certified reseller for Watson for Clinical Trials and Watson for Oncology. As an IBM Watson Beacon Award winner, a Watson Talent Partner, and one of only three worldwide partners selected by IBM to implement Watson solutions, we are uniquely qualified to help you apply the power of cognitive computing/AI to your healthcare challenges.
Learn more about AI in healthcare with “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Computing.”
