Northwell Health using AI and NLP to find clinical trial candidates

Clinithink Technology application finished a test involving records of 1M patients within 30 hours.


Northwell Health, New York state’s largest healthcare provider, has adopted software from Clinithink Technology to accelerate patient identification for clinical trials. Northwell’s service areas covers 8 million people, served by 23 hospitals, with more than 30,000 clinicians and 700 outpatient facilities.

Northwell is using the artificial intelligence and national language processing technologies of Clinithink to quickly identify potential patients for clinical trials who have been missed previously. Clinithink analysis of unstructured patient data is identifying clinical trial candidates within hours, the provider’s executives say.



Northwell conducted a proof of concept study that showed the total patient cohort considered was 939,378 patients, from which there were 3.3 million associated documents for review. The vendor assessed the patients against 22 different criteria in 30 hours, identifying 88 patients highly relevant to the trial.

“Clinithink allows us to mine a much richer data set and identify patients across our entire network, not just the specific location where the study is being conducted,” says Elaine Brennan, managing director of pharmaceutical ventures at Northwell. “Leveraging tools to support the patient identification and enrollment process is part of Northwell’s strategic goals to make clinical trials an option for patients and make Northwell a premier destination for clinical trials.”

Other contracts and implementations announced this week include:

* Two community hospitals in Alabama, D.W. McMillan Memorial Hospital in Brewton and Atmore Community Hospital, are switching to Cerner’s electronic health record system across all venues of care, along with four clinics. The Escambia County Healthcare Authority operates the delivery system. This is the first time the hospitals and clinics will operate under a unified EHR, with a digital record of each patient’s health history and financial information. The hospitals also will use Cerner’s complete suite of revenue cycle management software.

* Missouri Health Connection, the health information exchange for the state, is live on an interoperability gateway from e-prescribing vendor Dr. First, which will give clinicians access to sources of medication history. Clinicians will have the ability to share prescription data from the electronic health record without involving their IT departments. Missouri Health Connection serves more than 8,000 clinicians, hundreds of clinics and community health centers, and more than 75 hospitals. It also gives insurers access to health records for more than 20 million patients.

* Kindred at Home, the largest provider of home health, hospice and community care services, has selected Homecare Homebase to optimize data, standardize processes and improve efficiency and performance. An accompanying electronic health record will help Kindred handle increasing demands for post-acute and hospice care. The organization assessed several vendors, none of which could match the Homecare Homebase portfolio, says David Causby, CEO at Kindred at Home.

* Northwestern Medicine in Chicago is working with Alfardan Group in the nation of Qatar to provide higher levels of care and develop multidisciplinary medical specializations in Qatar. The nation and Northwestern Medicine are using the ambulatory care software of Allscripts, which is expanding into the Middle East. Allscripts modules include surgical care, radiology, clinical performance management, and laboratory and anesthesia products.

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