In the area of subject recruitment, there are several new technologies that focus on making it easier for companies to recruit, such as reaching a wider population directly for recruitment. Initially, recruitment was handled mostly by physicians and their patients; however reaching patients directly is proving to be very fruitful.
One example of a company in this area is Antidote Match. Antidote Match, which uses natural language processing, artificial intelligence, and an army of medical annotators, makes it easier than ever for people to find clinical trials they can qualify for. And, to make sure all patients know about the various opportunities they can have when it comes to participating in medical research, Antidote has built Connect Network, the first online network of patient organizations, online health portals, and advocacy groups who share a mission to accelerate medical research by connecting patients to trials.
What’s great about this approach is that it empowers patients directly to find their potential clinical trial matches, instead of relying on a physician to recommend a trial. By empowering patients, companies are establishing a direct relationship with the patients, and through Antidote’s network specifically, study information reaches more than 20 million patients per month.
Another example of using innovative technology to recruit subjects is IBM Watson. Watson can identify a large repository of electronic medical records and match patients to trials better and faster than any human could.
Given a patient’s clinical and health attributes, Watson can quickly identify trials for which the patient might be eligible. The solution can clearly show clinicians which criteria matched and what could be done to increase a patient’s eligibility for a trial.
While subject recruitment is a major concern for most life sciences companies, cognitive computing technologies like Watson can help transform this challenging area in the clinical trials space.
