Dr. Hanid Audish on How is Technology Advancing Clinical Trials

 

Clinical trials are essential to developing new medical treatments, such as new drugs and devices. Unfortunately, however, the process can be time-consuming and demanding for researchers and patients.

Innovations are revolutionizing how clinical trials are planned, conducted, and analyzed. These advances provide solutions for critical challenges related to patient recruitment and retention, remote patient monitoring, decentralized trials, and more patient-centric trials.

Streamlined Data Collection

Clinical trials require gathering a wide array of data - such as physiological, genetic, imaging, and biomarker information - for analysis. Optimizing data collection with technologies like electronic health records (EHR), mobile platforms, or wearable devices can streamline this process, maximize research efficiency, and enhance healthcare outcomes.

With an increasing global population and increasing numbers of elderly individuals, medical innovation remains at an all-time high. Unfortunately, clinical trial processes often prevent healthcare providers from marketing new treatments.

Dr. Hanid Audish suggests that innovative technological innovations are revolutionizing clinical trial experiences for participants by increasing patient engagement, speeding recruitment, and expediting treatment approvals. By prioritizing safety and data accuracy, technology is helping bring breakthrough medications to market faster.

Technology integration in clinical trials may seem complex, but using appropriate tools can assist pharmaceutical companies and CROs in conducting compliant, reliable trials that get critical treatments out sooner to patients. Adopting disruptive technologies such as AR, VR, and MR can enhance clinical trial processes by creating immersive trial experiences and facilitating real-time intervention adjustments. These tools can also streamline clinical trial data collection processes and provide remote monitoring, opening hybrid or decentralized clinical trials up to more patients. However, their implementation must emphasize patient engagement to guarantee an excellent experience for all participants.

Enhanced Patient Engagement

As highlighted by Dr. Hanid Audish, research has proven that engaging patients entirely in their care results in better outcomes and reduced costs. The health reform law recognized this, mandating new and existing delivery and payment models to engage them more fully in their care.

Patient engagement must be accessible and easy for all participants, rather than cumbersome diaries that require both parties to read simultaneously. Mobile apps offer more user-friendliness, allowing participants to use them regardless of their tech knowledge.

Patient-centric technology can also help alleviate barriers to clinical trial participation. For instance, allowing potential participants to sign in at their neighborhood pharmacy or from home instead of traveling long distances for in-person visits or navigating complex software may increase trial participation rates.

Dr. Hanid Audish points out that engagement between patients and clinical trials is also crucial to its success. Studies have demonstrated that active participants in their care adhere more closely to treatment protocols than passive participants, leading to better health and wellness outcomes and reduced overall costs. Therefore, engagement must continue throughout the trial process, including providing them with its findings once completed.

Accelerated Recruitment

Recruitment and enrollment of participants is often the cornerstone of clinical trials, making their success dependent on successful strategies for recruitment and enrollment of study participants. Without practical approaches in place, delays can arise that hinder progress toward developing an effective treatment.

Digital transformation is helping accelerate recruitment by making it easier than ever to identify prospective participants through targeted outreach campaigns. Social media, mobile health apps, and healthcare websites can all be utilized to identify participants while customizing messaging to suit each person. This has dramatically reduced engagement barriers while speeding up the time needed to get clinical trials up and running.

Dr. Hanid Audish conveys that remote decentralized clinical trials (DCTs) use digital health technologies (DHTS) to collect patient data directly, eliminating the need to visit physical sites for data collection. This approach offers significant advantages over traditional methods, increasing access for underrepresented groups while decreasing patient burden and speeding recruitment efforts.

However, it's essential to remember that technology accessibility may differ for each participant and failing to consider this can lead to the misrepresentation or alienation of participants. AI can make an enormous difference by analyzing communication data from healthcare practitioners and patients to predict early dropouts before they occur, saving researchers time and resources.

Global Collaboration

Dr. Hanid Audish articulates that global collaboration is critical in the research and development of medicine. International partnerships create an environment where scientists from diverse countries, cultures, and regions can collaborate on research while sharing findings. When rare diseases such as pulmonary vascular disease gained attention in the US, researchers partnered with doctors and hospitals in developing nations to research it further and find novel therapies.

Global collaboration is critical for increasing access to clinical trials. Recruitment efforts targeted at minority populations, historical under-representation issues, and regulatory framework improvements have significantly increased study enrollment.   

Global collaboration also helps advance clinical trials through global research networks like Good Trials Prism. These networks facilitate excellence by connecting, sharing knowledge, building capacity, and hosting regional centers, digital platforms, events, and training activities to foster innovation and knowledge transfer.

Educators also benefit from using technology for global collaboration in their classrooms, which can lead to more equitable learning experiences and opportunities. With the right tools, international collaborative projects can be implemented across all subject areas and support students in cultivating empathy, compassion, and an appreciation of diversity.