Category: blog

At VigiLanz, we understand the importance of clinical research. Supporting hospital teams with the tools they need to connect real people with opportunities for life-changing treatments is central to our company mission – and that’s why we’ve recently developed a real-time patient identification software solution designed to help research teams quickly and efficiently find the most qualified candidates for clinical trials.

By integrating with live data inside a hospital’s EHR, VigiLanz Research streamlines patient recruitment strategies for clinical research by ensuring that research teams spend less time searching for qualified candidates and more time screening those who do. Thanks to the software’s customizable rules engine that searches the EHR for qualified candidates 24/7, clinical teams can rest assured that every eligible candidate within their system will be accurately identified.

VigiLanz Research’s real-time patient identification abilities can significantly accelerate the clinical trial recruitment phase for a trial site. This is because the software reduces the need for costly and labor-intensive manual search processes. The benefits of rapid patient identification are significant: faster clinical trial enrollment means an increased likelihood of clinical trial success, which ultimately can get life-changing products to market faster while reducing costs for sponsors. More importantly, it helps people gain access to potentially life-saving treatments that could help them live longer, healthier lives.

Learn More About VigiLanz Research

For more information about finding patients for clinical trials in real time, give us a call today at 855.525.9078 or leave us a message through our contact form.

Clinical trials are an important part of advancing healthcare, contributing to better treatments and outcomes for patients by helping doctors and researchers understand how diseases affect them.

Whether a hospital can optimize clinical trial enrollment plays a key role in their ultimate success or failure as a clinical trial site. If too few patients participate or don’t meet the criteria, the hospital will not be able to complete the trial.

Historically, medical researchers and clinical study directors have used electronic health records (EHRs) for clinical research support. In other words, they use the EHR to find eligible patients by manually sorting through it to identify candidates who match specific study criteria.

This process is cumbersome, and leads to inefficiencies both for the trial coordinators and for the trial itself. In addition, this time-consuming process often results in missed clinical trial enrollment opportunities, since many studies require that patients be enrolled within a specific period of time after a care episode or treatment.

Accelerating the Clinical Trial Patient Enrollment Process

New technology automatically filters through EHRs in real time to locate all eligible candidates within the healthcare system. Coordinators of clinical trials become unencumbered by manual searches, which supports the speed in which qualified patients can be reviewed and enrolled.

Sharp Grossmont Hospital has been using this technology since 2020, and DeAnn Cary, PhD, Director of Research, says it has significantly accelerated their enrollment process.

“VigiLanz Research has also enabled our small staff of clinical research coordinators to feel confident that they have not missed a single qualified potential research participant,” said Cary. “It has also enabled them to focus their time and energies on the patients who meet or nearly meet the study criteria, rather than having to manually review hundreds of patient charts.”

Key benefits of the new technology, she added, include the real-time patient identification for studies that have a very short timeline for identification and recruitment (e.g., cardiac and stroke).

Clinical trials are designed with one purpose: to help patients. If you need help finding patients for clinical trials in real time, consider VigiLanz Research. Contact us today if you’d like to see a demo of the product.

One of the biggest challenges hospitals and other clinical trial sites face is clinical trial enrollment. New technology, however, is changing that.

This technology facilitates efficient patient recruitment in clinical trials by identifying potential participants in real time.

How does it work? The technology integrates with a hospital’s EHR and continuously monitors the patient data within it to automatically identify trial-eligible patients using intelligent rule sets built from study-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria.

In addition to making it easier to identify and enroll patients in clinical trials, this technology improves staff satisfaction and efficiency by relieving research coordinators from manually searching through patient records to find potential participants that meet the study’s requirements.

This had a big impact on the research team at Sharp Grossmont Hospital, who began using VigiLanz Research in 2020. Because the technology automatically sends alerts whenever an eligible patient is located within the system, the Sharp team was able to spend 50% less time screening patients and reallocate that time to other high-value initiatives.

Two Other Key Benefits of Efficient Patient Recruitment Technology

1. 1. Optimal decision-making. The technology facilitates optimal decision-making regarding clinical trial participation for hospitals and other clinical trial sites. For example, the technology provides customized reports that offer a holistic view into real-time trial participation performance. These reports and insights can also help hospitals determine, based on their patient populations, if they should participate in additional clinical trials.
2. 2. Increased likelihood of successful trial completion. The technology enables hospitals and clinical trial sites to identify and enroll patients in clinical trials much more quickly, which increases the likelihood that the site will enroll enough patients to successfully complete the clinical trial. Trial enrollment rules are often time sensitive, such as requiring that a patient be enrolled quickly within a certain time period after a care episode – and real-time patient identification can help ensure that these windows are not missed.

The race to enroll patients in clinical trials requires a solution like VigiLanz Research to help researchers identify eligible patients as quickly as possible. If you want to learn more about how VigiLanz can help achieve more efficient clinical trial patient enrollment, contact us today.

Clinical trial enrollment is often challenging for hospitals and other clinical trial sites. In fact, industry research shows that nearly 70% of all clinical trial sites fail to meet enrollment targets.

The good news is that new technology can help change this dynamic, making it easier and faster for hospitals to identify eligible clinical trial patients.

Clinical trial sites across the country, such as Sharp Grossmont Hospital in San Diego, are already experiencing the benefits of this technology.

What’s different about this new technology?

While many hospitals rely on manual identifications from their electronic medical record (EMR) to enroll eligible candidates, this process can be extremely time consuming.

New technology, like VigiLanz Research, integrates with a hospital’s EMR to find patients for clinical trials in real time.

It does this by applying intelligent rule sets—tailored specifically to a clinical trial’s unique protocols—to automatically search the hospital’s entire EMR and alert researchers when an eligible candidate is identified within the system.

Three advantages of this new approach

Here are three advantages of using new technology to complement electronic health records for clinical research:

Advantage #1: Confident identification

Failed clinical trials often stem from the inability to meet enrollment numbers, particularly when those trials have extensive and specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data-driven tools, such as VigiLanz Research, sift through EMR data in real time to identify all eligible candidates based on rules built on clinical trial eligibility criteria. This ensures clinical trial coordinators are more easily able to identify all patients who qualify, and can rest assured that no eligible candidates will be missed.

Advantage #2: Earlier enrollment

Many clinical trials are time-sensitive, such as requiring that trial enrollees receive a new drug within a specific time frame after a medical event has occurred. Once that time frame has closed, those patients no longer qualify for the trial. VigiLanz Research automatically identifies eligible patients within the hospital as soon as they become eligible, making it easier for research coordinators to enroll them in time.

Advantage #3: Efficient processes

Using VigiLanz Research to complement the EMR makes processes much more efficient for clinical research teams by providing:

• A dynamic worklist that coordinators can use to view or modify patient eligibility status in real time
• Automatic alerts that notify coordinators any time an eligible candidate is located within the hospital network
• Enterprise-level reporting that coordinators and leaders can use to evaluate study performance and easily evaluate potential clinical trials

The future of clinical trial enrollment technology

VigiLanz Research enables faster identification, earlier enrollment, and efficient processes, making trials more accessible to patients and more effective for providers.

By empowering researchers to screen more qualified candidates, VigiLanz speeds up the clinical study process. For hospitals, this increases the likelihood for clinical trial enrollment success, and for sponsors, this potentially saves millions of dollars and helps get products to market faster.

Most importantly, VigiLanz connects real people with opportunities for life-changing treatments that could help them live longer, healthier lives.

To learn more about how VigiLanz helps hospitals find patients for clinical trials in real time, visit https://vigilanzcorp.com/research/.

While clinical trials provide the opportunity to bring novel treatments to patients in need, enrolling patients in clinical trials can be a difficult process for hospitals and other research organizations.

More than 10% of clinical trial sites never successfully enroll even a single patient, and more than two-thirds fail to meet enrollment targets.

Why is clinical trial enrollment so tough? Here we break down the top three challenges, and explore how clinical trial sites can overcome them.

Challenge 1: Traditional screening methods take time

Most hospitals rely on manual screening methods to identify and enroll patients in clinical trials, and these processes can be tedious, time consuming, and expensive. As staff shortages and burnout continue to increase within hospitals, finding ways to improve efficiency across the organization is increasingly important.

To learn about how Sharp Healthcare is optimizing its clinical trial enrollment process, read this case study.

Challenge 2: Traditional screening methods can lead to missed enrollment opportunities

Keeping track of complex inclusion and exclusion criteria while working fast enough to meet demanding trial timelines can be very difficult for clinical trial coordinators. Some trials are time-sensitive and require patients to be enrolled quickly once identified — so working fast to identify eligible patients is key.

Traditional manual screening processes also increase the likelihood that eligible patients could be missed, especially when the inclusion and exclusion criteria for a trial is complex.

Challenge 3: Traditional screening methods are costly

As noted, enrolling patients in clinical trials is often time-consuming and inefficient for staff members. That, in turn, translates to higher labor costs. With a more efficient process, clinical trial researchers could spend less time searching for patients and more time screening and enrolling qualified candidates, as well as take on additional work in other areas.

Another cost associated with traditional screening methods is that of potential missed revenue. If the trial fails to meet clinical trial enrollment targets, the hospital misses out on participation and the associated revenue benefits.

A Better Way

VigiLanz Research can help hospitals greatly enhance their recruitment processes. The technology, which integrates with live data inside a hospital’s EHR, leverages study-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to automatically screen all patients across a hospital network in real time, and provides automated alerts and notifications to team members when it identifies appropriate candidates.

From there, coordinators can track eligibility status, run timely reports, and manage the recruitment process in a customized worklist. The solution also provides enterprise-level reporting that coordinators and leaders can use to easily gain insights on patients screened for eligibility.

A fast, accurate, real-time patient identification solution not only benefits clinical researchers, but helps ensure that every eligible patient inside a hospital system who qualifies for a clinical study is given the opportunity to participate.

To learn more about how VigiLanz can help with patient recruitment strategies for clinical research, visit https://vigilanzcorp.com/research/.

Finding the right candidates for clinical trial enrollment can be challenging. For many researchers, this process involves manually searching through electronic health records for patients that meet complex sets of inclusion and exclusion criteria. This can quickly become a labor intensive and tedious task, and can make it difficult for researchers to meet time-sensitive enrollment windows.

The good news is that VigiLanz Research speeds up this process. The technology integrates with live data inside a hospital’s EHR and applies intelligent rule sets – tailored specifically to a clinical trial’s unique protocols – to automatically search the hospital’s entire network and alert researchers whenever an eligible candidate is identified.

Here are three of the top benefits hospitals are experiencing as a result of implementing this technology:

Benefit 1: Accelerate patient recruitment

VigiLanz Research makes finding patients for clinical trials in real time possible. Manual reviews only happen during work hours, but VigiLanz searches for qualified candidates 24/7. Once patients are identified, researchers can easily manage their eligibility status in a customizable worklist.

Benefit 2: Maximize the research team’s time

With less time needed for manual searches, researchers can focus on screening and enrolling more qualified candidates. This translates to significant time savings and frees up the team to focus on other high-value tasks, including the capacity to potentially participate in additional trials.

Benefit 3: Improve the likelihood of trial success

By screening all patients across every department in real time, VigiLanz Research helps ensure that every eligible patient who walks into the hospital is identified.This makes it easier for research teams to meet recruitment targets and time-sensitive enrollment windows.

See VigiLanz Research in action

Efficient patient recruitment for clinical trials has never been easier. Want to know more? Check out our recent case study with Sharp Grossmont Hospital to learn how they are using VigiLanz Research to streamline the recruitment process.

Hospitals are relying on healthcare software solutions now more than ever to manage their resources effectively, provide optimal care to patients, and support staff when possible. However, it is important when hospitals are seeking out a solution that they choose one that can deliver on the promise healthcare software solutions can bring, and not one that will increase workloads for hospital staff.

Features these solutions should have include:

• Integration: The system should integrate with your EMR systems, and it should be able to leverage multiple types of data—including patient demographics, medication orders, pharmacy orders, and lab results.
• Configurability: The system should adapt to your processes and workflows, providing customized forms and enabling automated notifications and communication processes that align with your desired workflows.
• Security: The system should adhere to current industry security standards, including data encryption in transit and at rest, role-specific privileges, compliance with third-party security attestations, and providing security audit reports. It should also undergo vulnerability and penetration testing multiple times per year from a reputable outside firm.
• Accessibility: The system should be accessible via approved mobile devices, and it should support mobile viewing without requiring an app download. That way, staff can easily document and review events when they are connected to the hospital network.
• Training: The system’s training program should include live training and on-demand modules to ensure optimal use by existing staff and new staff.
• Support: The system should provide a healthcare-experienced service and support team, including a main point of contact that rapidly responds to inquiries and requests. This contact should answer questions; assist with building custom forms, charts, and reports; and help explore additional capabilities when new needs arise.

At VigiLanz, we have ensured that our healthcare software solutions check these boxes with a platform that can provide meaningful data analysis across your entire hospital, helping you to make smarter business decisions and optimize care. Our platform includes solutions for pharmacy surveillance, infection prevention, antimicrobial stewardship, safety surveillance, and more.

Looking to implement a new healthcare software solution that improves safety event reporting? Check out our Hospital Safety Event Reporting Buyer’s Guide to learn more about what to look for in a solution.

Business intelligence represents the collection and analysis of data to enable organizations to make strategic decisions, enhance processes, and minimize inefficiencies. Healthcare business intelligence, when applied to the massive amount of medical records, insurance claims, and billing information found in every hospital, enables systems to improve administrative operations and reduce unnecessary costs.

VigiLanz, an award-winning provider of clinical surveillance, safety, quality, and risk solutions, employs healthcare business intelligence throughout its platform to deliver meaningful insights that boost efficiency and elevate outcomes for all areas of care.

Here are a few of our solutions that deploy healthcare business intelligence:

Audit: Streamline the full audit lifecycle and help create and maintain an efficient, repeatable audit process, so hospitals can effectively evaluate improvement initiatives and scale programs when appropriate.

Risk and Claims: Boost the efficiency of workflows throughout the entire lifecycle of claims and litigation events and identify risk-reduction and damage-control opportunities. Risk and claims solutions enable the easy entry, management, and escalation of claims and budgets; analysis of department-specific and enterprise-wide data; and mitigation of risks and prevention of future incidents.

Patient Relations: Streamline management of patient and visitor feedback, identifying opportunities to improve patient satisfaction and service recovery. This solution can help transform patient satisfaction at your hospital by minimizing time managing patient feedback, and streamlining reporting and investigation processes.

These solutions are key components of VigiLanz’s award-winning clinical surveillance platform that enables a “whole-hospital” view of data analysis, helping systems to make smarter business decisions and to optimize care.

Want to learn more about the importance of healthcare business intelligence and how VigiLanz applies it to help you? Check out these additional resources:

• Audit
• Risk and Claims
• Patient Relations

The hospital safety landscape has changed dramatically in the last two years, especially as hospitals deal with the pandemic and its lasting impact. As a result, there have been many lessons learned, and a greater interest in patient case management software to improve patient safety.

To learn more about these shifts, VigiLanz released the fourth annual Hospital Patient Safety Report, based on a survey of 100 hospital executives and clinical leaders. Below are answers to top questions regarding hospital safety:

How do hospital leaders feel they are doing in terms of improving patient safety?

While many (89%) hospital leaders report that the pandemic exposed safety vulnerabilities within their hospital, around one-third believe they have not done enough to address those vulnerabilities.

The good news is that 78% of hospital leaders say that the pandemic has led to initiatives that have improved patient safety, and 71% say it has made improving patient safety a higher priority. This shift has accelerated interest in patient case management software to better manage safety issues.

What patient safety challenges are hospitals currently facing?

The biggest safety problem hospitals are facing is hospital acquired infections (44% of responses). Additionally, only 58% of hospital executives and clinical leaders say most hospitals have made meaningful, long-term improvements to address pandemic-exposed infection prevention vulnerabilities. Among pharmacy-related challenges, top challenges include medication errors, drug shortages, and antimicrobial stewardship.

What do hospitals think of patient case management software?

Hospitals see the value in patient case management software to target specific safety challenges. When asked in what instances would a clinical surveillance solution be most helpful, respondents answered:

• Identifying antibiotic overuse (92%)
• Identifying and managing safety events (81%)
• Identifying medication errors (81%)
• Identifying potential infections and outbreaks sooner (81%)

In addition, 92% said clinical surveillance software was helpful in enhancing their response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Patient case management software is becoming an essential tool for hospitals as they manage safety challenges and seek to enhance safety for patients, staff, and visitors. Check out our patient case management software to learn more about tools available for your hospital!

Hospitals have identified medication errors as a top safety problem, with only 42% of respondents in a survey of 100 hospital leaders saying their pharmacy surveillance efforts are very effective. However, reducing medication errors and antibiotic overuse/misuse only rank fifth and sixth in hospitals’ safety priorities.

With VigiLanz’ 5-time Best in KLAS medication management software, hospitals can easily receive the pharmacy data analytics they need to anticipate, prevent, and respond to adverse drug events while experiencing the following benefits:

Maximized efficiency:

• Rapidly evaluate patients of interest with efficient rounding tools
• Easily manage alerts in real-time
• Dramatically reduce manual chart review

Standardized protocols:

• Enhance compliance with standards of practice
• Automate drug oversight with customized alerts and usage reports
• Receive protocol-based dose adjustment recommendations

Improved medication safety:

• Reduce ADEs with real-time alerts
• Manage medication dosing
• Optimize high-risk medication use

Enhanced pharmacy data analytics and reporting:

• Access up-to-date reports and analytics at any time
• Automate required reporting to NHSN
• Enhance visibility with an enterprise-wide dashboard

Lower costs:

• Identify cost-savings opportunities
• Manage high-cost drug use
• Understand usage patterns by location, provider, and service

By using pharmacy data analytics from VigiLanz’ medication management software, Freeman Health System saved an estimated $4.7M in medication error avoidance over an 18-month period.

Learn more about the benefits of medication management software and pharmacy data analytics, and how they can help your hospital today! Check out further resources below:

• VigiLanz Pharmacy Surveillance
• Hospital Patient Safety Report 2022
• Medication Error Spotlight