Participating in a program like Greenway’s allows a practice to:

• Easily identify clinical trials that the practice may be eligible to participate in;
• Quickly query their database to identify patients who meet certain conditions for participating in particular clinical trials;
• Submit information from their EHR directly to EDC systems; and,
• Reduce overall data entry time and costs associated with clinical trials.

By digitizing what used to be paper records, a practice can lower the number of patient rejections from a trial, decrease time spent doing data entry, reduce transcription costs and reduce staff time related to clinical trial participation.

Clinical Trials Are Important to the Future of Healthcare
Most drugs and treatments on the market today originated from some form of a clinical trial. These tests are extremely important to the health of virtually every person in the world. But unfortunately, getting a new drug to market costs more than $1 billion dollars; takes approximately 10 years; and has upwards of a 75% failure rate. This leads to increased healthcare costs and more patient suffering as drugs wait to get on the market.

If the clinical trials could be completed more quickly by using EHR software, it wouldn’t just be the drug companies that would benefit. Sick patients waiting on essential treatment would be cured more quickly; overall healthcare costs would be reduced; and the conclusions reached from the data gathered would be more solid.

Get a Stronger Return on Your EHR Investment
When it comes to getting that return on investment (ROI) on your EHR purchase, the typical benefits discussed are: reducing the need for transcription services; improving insurance claim coding; reducing paper supply costs, and; improving chart management, to name just a few. While these are great reasons to purchase an EHR, we believe the profit from participating in clinical trials is just as great a benefit.

Comprehensive data on how much a practice can profit from using their EHR in clinical trials is difficult to come by. But a compelling example is the Holston Medical Group (HMG) in Kingsport, TN. Soon after HMG began using an EHR in 1996, the company began participating in clinical trials using the data from their EHR. In the last few years, they created a strong ROI on their investment. From Health Management Technology:

“HMG’s income from clinical research went from $86,700 in the first year (1996) to $1.9 million in 2004, with estimated 2005 revenues of $2.5 million. That 68 percent average annual revenue increase enabled us to pay substantial bonuses to participating physicians—a total of $330,000 in 2004, with roughly $420,000 for 2005—and to cover the entire annual cost of operating the research department and the EHR itself.“

HMG’s EHR influenced their involvement in clinical trials in three major ways.

First, HMG is able to quickly query their EHR database to see which patients qualify for particular studies. Instead of using traditional (and lengthy) screening procedures, HMG has the ability to almost instantly check their EHR records to see how many patients potentially qualify for which clinical trials.

Next, the scope of patient information contained within their EHRs helps improve accuracy when screening patients for clinical trials. The more information a practice has on a patient, the better able it is to assess a patient’s eligibility for a study. HMG’s EHR puts detailed information about their patients at their employees’ fingertips, which leads to increased enrollment and lower rejection rates.

Finally, HMG’s EHR is web-based, which means that its doctors always have access to the latest patient information, no matter where the doctor is located. The EHR will notify doctors that a patient is enrolled in a particular clinical trial, which allows them to double check that certain medications or treatments won’t violate the protocol of the trial.

Another example of an organization using EHR data to profit from clinical trials is the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic has 7 million digital patient records and they’ve teamed up with a firm to help unlock those records’ potential for accelerating clinical trials. The Mayo Clinic conducts thousands of clinical trials each year and they are paid based on the number of patients they enroll. Patient enrollment is one of the most difficult challenges in any clinical trial. Mayo is hoping that tapping its EHR database will improve patient enrollment and lower rejection rates.

Clinical trials are taking longer and becoming more expensive every year. As these trials become more cumbersome to conduct, it’s inevitable that drug companies will turn to those organizations that can quickly and accurately assess patient data. More than likely, those organizations will be using EHR software.

As we said before, improving clinical trials by using EHR software is a win for everyone.

Chris Thorman regularly blogs at Software Advice. This article was originally published here: Electronic Health Records and Clinical Trials: An Incentive to Integrate.