Carebox and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network are Piloting Clinical Trial Matching at the Point of Care

Pilot of EHR-embedded clinical trial matching to enhance diversity in cancer research set to begin at two hospital systems in Texas and West Virginia.

Carebox, a leading provider of clinical trial matching solutions, today announced its participation in the launch of the “Blue-button” Matching Project of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN).

The Blue-button tool automatically identifies relevant clinical trials through one-button clinical trial matching integration within electronic health records (EHRs). It puts clinical trial matching into the workflow of treating physicians via automated matching and pre-screening of clinical trials based on the patient record being viewed. This automated matching can surface the hospital system’s own portfolio of clinical trials, as well as optionally matching trials within a specified distance from where the patient is located.

ACS CAN has announced that the Blue-button tool will now be piloted with over 500 patients at the University of Texas Southwestern Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center – an urban, academic center – and West Virginia University Cancer Institute, a rural, multi-site community system. The pilot will evaluate whether the tool can increase and diversify trial participation with minimal effort on the part of providers.

Carebox is one of several vendors that will be providing matching technology to ACS CAN for this project. Carebox is the only participating vendor that covers not only all cancer types but also tens of other conditions in its clinical trial matching engine.

“We’re very pleased to be able to incorporate Carebox’s long-tested matching technology and its ability to provide trial choices to the patients into this pilot, ” said Mark Fleury, Ph.D., Policy Principal for ACS CAN and lead investigator on the project.

“The robust platform architecture of Carebox Connect allowed us to take the same matching engine used by over one million patients in our solutions for trial sponsors, patient advocacy groups, and the Carebox Connect web application (https://connect.careboxhealth.com) and make it available as a stand-alone API that supports the HL7® Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®) standard used by EHRs,” explained Shaike Marc, Carebox VP of Technology. Carebox is working with several partners to pilot the integration of trial matching into a wide range of digital health application contexts.

Carebox Connect for Sites is used by leading hospital research centers such as UCLA Health across all disease areas being researched, as well as with leading cancer centers such as the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine and the Moffitt Cancer Center. It enables them to engage, educate, navigate, match, and refer patients and treating physicians to the clinical trial study teams in their centers more effectively. 

“We believe that bringing trial matching into the workflow of treating physicians at the point of care will add an important additional dimension to Carebox Connect for Sites,” noted Brian Weiss, Carebox CEO. “It will allow research centers to optimize trial recruitment and enhance participant diversity in support of ongoing clinical research. We are proud and excited to be working with ACS CAN on this strategic initiative to evolve and validate this capability.”

About Carebox

Carebox connects patients and physicians seeking treatment options with clinical trials. For patients and families, access to information about the newest and most advanced treatment options is obscured and frustrating to find. For pharma companies, clinical trial recruitment is the primary bottleneck in the $100B+ drug development market now being reshaped by precision medicine treatment specificity, new trial models, diversity requirements, and digital health consumer expectations. Carebox is at the forefront of addressing these challenges for patients and their families, as well as for the ecosystem of companies involved in sponsoring, running, and recruiting for clinical trials. 

Learn more about Carebox at https://careboxhealth.com.

About Carebox Connect

The Carebox Connect cloud platform digitizes Carebox’s two decades of experience in navigating over one million patients seeking clinical trial options. It enables trial sponsors of all sizes to educate, engage, navigate, match, qualify, refer, and enroll patients in their clinical trials. Pharma trial sponsors, hospital research centers, and patient advocacy groups use Carebox Connect to present their clinical trial portfolios to the public, optimize trial recruitment, and enhance participant diversity in support of ongoing clinical research.

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