To improve the way patients, providers, and research funders connect, Epic’s new Life Sciences program is designed to expand clinical trial access to more patients and support better for the development of new research.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
According to Epic’s announcement, the various systems currently used for clinical studies can be tedious for patients and service providers.
Epic is testing a new data-driven program, which will initially focus on clinical trial matching, to better recruit participants and speed the development of new therapies. Registered physicians will receive purpose-built Cosmos database searches to validate trials.
Automating data flows in EHRs and eliminating duplicate workflows through a unified system can help lower technical and personnel barriers to trigger research, Epic says.
Alan Hutchison, vice president at Epic, said: “Merging clinical research with care delivery and building direct connections with research funders will help accelerate the development of therapeutics new methods by making research more effective, accessible, and effective,” Alan Hutchison, vice president at Epic, said in the statement.
Epic vendors perform more than 100,000 studies involving 4.7 million patients.
The plan can provide point-of-care details about when a patient may be eligible for a clinical trial.
Seth Howard, vice president of research and development at Epic, explained in the announcement.
LifeSciences providers and teams interested in feasibility studies and clinical trial matchmaking can contact [email protected] to learn more.
TREND TO BIGGER
In an interview this past March, Dr Jackie Gerhart, a physician at Epic who works in clinical informatics, told IT news about healthcare Cosmos, the database engine behind the new Life Sciences program in Epic, contained 140 million patient records and 2.2 billion physician visits at the time.
The system requires a donation to use the data, providing doctors with the option to participate. Participating providers can perform queries with identified patient data.
According to Gerhart, Epic is working to integrate a Best Care My Patient display by the end of 2023 that can help doctors shape patient care on a personal level. This tool will allow physicians to search relevant Cosmos data at the point of care by searching patient health criteria based on the data.
Doctors will then be able to see how well others who fit the criteria are treated and what their results are.
Data-driven tools are being created by many companies to improve the EHR experience and reduce clinician burnout, according to EHR usability experts including Gerhart.
“In the future, Cosmos will help doctors make important clinical decisions – such as which drugs to prescribe or whether to perform surgery – by looking at millions of patients and interact in Cosmos and figure out what works best for similar patients,” she said.
ON PROFILE
“Ultimately, our shared goal is to help patients access life-changing therapies earlier by reducing friction throughout the clinical trial lifecycle,” Epic’s Seth Howard said in the announcement. program.
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS publication.
