⚕️ Feasibility in Clinical Trials

Good Morning. With everyone celebrating mother’s day this Sunday, lets not forget another important day, international nurses day, commemorating the birth of Florence Nightingale.

A big thank you to all the nurses for your unwavering commitment to patient care and for being the heart of healthcare.

DEEP DIVE
Decoding Site Selection And Feasibility Tools For Clinical Trials

Site selection and feasibility are an important step in clinical trial research.

• Site selection ensures that the right sites are chosen, along with the patient population, infrastructure, and expertise to carry out the trial.

• Site feasibility tells whether a clinical trial can be practically executed and ethically conducted.

Here is a list of top site selection and feasibility tools that researchers and pharma companies can use to conduct successful clinical trials

1. Mapping software

2. SWOT analysis

3. Modeling and simulation tools

4. Surveys

Read about the top considerations for site selection and feasibility and conducting successful clinical trials here.

PULSE POINTS
Latest Breakthroughs This Week

Here’s the most important breakthroughs and advancements we spotted in the healthcare technology space this week.

• AI Triaging ER Patients: University of California, SF researchers fed 10,000 pairs of deidentified ER visits into GPT-4, a large language model developed by OpenAI, asking the technology to identify which had the more severe condition. The AI was correct 89% of the time. Another 500-pair subset was evaluated by physicians as well as AI. The AI was right in 88% of cases, compared to 86% for physicians.

• Clinical Documentation: University of Chicago Medicine is collaborating with Abridge, leveraging the latter's AI platform. The aim is to enhance clinical documentation through real-time note generation during clinician-patient conversations. The partnership involves research to evaluate the impact on clinician well-being, retention, and patient outcomes. Additionally, UChicago Medicine seeks to explore how structured clinical dialogue data can reveal insights into population health, particularly concerning social determinants affecting vulnerable patients.

• Partnership: MUSC Health is partnering with AI company Andor Health to use artificial intelligence to enhance the patient experience in its emergency departments by implementing ThinkAndor Virtual Rounding’s ambient documentation and virtual triage capabilities into its emergency department workflows.

• HealthTech Funding: Memorial Hermann Health System is looking at increasing its reach and supporting the shift to value-based care by investing in a $2.2 billion digital health startup, Transcarent, a company that provides a personalized digital health platform to employers and health plans.

• Policy: A U.S. House committee approved a bill that would extend health systems' ability to provide telehealth and hospital-at-home care.The Ways and Means Committee advanced the Preserving Telehealth, Hospital, and Ambulance Access Act, which would ease telehealth requirements for Medicare patients through 2026 and extend the acute hospital care at home program through 2029.

• Stats: 10% of Mass General Brigham attending physicians are experimenting with generative AI that listens to patient visits and uploads notes to EHRs. The health system has been one of the earliest, and most aggressive, adopters of generative AI, while also carefully researching its efficacy and safety. The organization is also studying the ambient listening technology's effects on patient experience and physician retention.

PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT
HealthyID: Transforming People’s Health From Home

This week, HealthTech Zen got in touch with Laura E. Owen, founder and CEO of HealthyID, a digital health company that serves people’s most personal health needs – at home.

What personal or professional experiences influenced creating HealthyID?

There is a major national shortage of physicians. Furthermore, following COVID, many people now prefer to have their most personal health needs met from the privacy and convenience of their homes. We do that, and we do that at a cost that is often less than the client would pay if they sought the same care through traditional means. 

What were the hurdles you faced while bringing HealthyID to life?

We faced many technical and legal hurdles in building HealthyID.com. The old adage “it always takes longer and it always costs more” is a cliché for a reason.

How do you see digital healthcare evolving?

Digital healthcare is exploding. People want privacy and convenience, and they don't want to waste hours sitting in a clinic or physician's office. Furthermore, people don't want certain health and wellness needs on their medical record. We serve all the 3 fastest growing segments of digital healthcare. 

We believe digital healthcare is in its infancy and will continue to grow at a very fast pace due to customer demand and due to the shortage of physicians.

Continue reading here. 

DECODER
What Are Native Apps In Healthcare?

Native apps in healthcare refer to applications specifically designed and developed for use on a particular platform or device, such as smartphones or tablets.

These apps are built using the native programming languages and frameworks supported by the operating system of the device, such as Swift or Objective-C for iOS devices (iPhone, iPad) and Java or Kotlin for Android devices.

Read more about native vs web apps in healthcare here.