Altru Health System Increased Enrollment from 4% to 11% of its Oncology Population, Improving Care Options for Patients
May 29, 2024, COLUMBUS, Ohio–Paradigm announced results from a collaboration with Altru Health System to improve the efficiency of its clinical research program and expand the availability of clinical research as a care option for patients spanning 46 locations across a rural catchment area of over 4,000 square miles in North Dakota and Minnesota.
“The healthcare industry has a moral obligation to reduce the barriers of patient access to clinical research,” said Ashlee Dagoberg, PT, DPT, Manager of Research Program, Altru Health System. “Patients in rural communities face geographic and socioeconomic burdens that inhibit access to novel treatments. It is imperative that we expand patient access to research through community health systems to provide all people with equal opportunities and the possibility of achieving better health outcomes.”
Access to clinical research is a critical and often lacking component of patient care for treatment of cancer. A key research objective for Altru is to enable every patient, regardless of physical location, with opportunities to benefit from clinical research as a care option. Prior to engaging with Paradigm, Altru identified patient recruitment infrastructure and staffing capacity as barriers negatively impacting the organization’s ability to meet that goal, particularly for those being treated outside of the main cancer center. This is a common issue: it’s difficult to screen patients for eligibility, and therefore enroll them in a timely manner, because the level of effort to do so requires incorporating disparate systems and data, which far exceed the staffing capacity and technology available to many rural care centers.
Altru adopted Paradigm’s Platform and incorporated Paradigm’s clinical services. Paradigm integrated Altru’s disparate data and source systems on the company’s platform, which fulfilled the necessary infrastructure for efficient, data-driven patient screening for clinical trial opportunities across all Altru locations.
Paradigm’s platform and clinical services were deployed in Altru’s clinical workflows to pre-screen every Altru patient for potential clinical trial participation, regardless of location, prior to upcoming care visits. Pre-screening increased from 10,200 annual patient visits within Altru Cancer Center to over 21,200 cancer patient visits across the health system, while reducing Altru staff burden through effective use of the Paradigm platform and clinical services. By increasing pre-screening more patients are now able to consider clinical research as a treatment option, at the right time during their care. Further, Paradigm and Altru worked to simplify the pathway to enrollment, resulting in nearly 3x as many patients choosing clinical research as a care option.
“Altru Health System historically enrolled four percent of our cancer patient population in clinical trials,” continued Dr. Dagoberg. “Our partnership with Paradigm and our Research Department’s implementation of industry leading best practices increased this enrollment to 11% of the population. This has a profound impact on patients’ lives in a rural community that otherwise would not have access to clinical research as a care option.”
Altru Health System (Altru) (www.altru.org) is a non-profit community healthcare provider and member of the Mayo Clinic Care Network headquartered in Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States. The health system serves a population of 225,000 residents in a rural catchment area spanning 4,000 square miles in the states of North Dakota and Minnesota, and employs over 3,250 professionals and has been committed to caring for the region for more than 130 years. Altru offers a wide range of world-class healthcare services and is the leading provider for rural patient access to innovative clinical research with an emphasis on convenience and proximity. Read more details in the case study with Altru Health System.
Paradigm is rebuilding the clinical research ecosystem by creating a platform that enables equitable access to trials for all patients, while enhancing trial efficiency and reducing the barriers to participation for healthcare providers. Incubated by ARCH Venture Partners and backed by leading healthcare and life sciences investors, Paradigm aims to break down barriers across the trial ecosystem through one seamless infrastructure implemented at healthcare provider organizations, bringing potentially life-saving therapies to patients faster.