Clinical trials are critical to the scientific advancement of cancer care. According to the Journal of Clinical Oncology, a lack of patient accruals represents a major barrier to the success of clinical trials, with only a small portion of qualified patients actually being considered for enrollment.1
For practices participating in research, iKnowMed EHR can help increase participation in trials, whether the trials are offered through US Oncology Research or another research network. The iKnowMed EHR team works with the practice to identify all clinical trial protocols in which the practice is participating and loads them into the iKnowMed EHR system. Once the clinical trial protocols are loaded, the system automatically screens new patients for potential eligibility matches after their staging and diagnosis is complete and relevant clinical trial choices are included among the suggested regimens. With this information, oncologists can more easily assess patient eligibility for appropriate open trials.
In addition to helping providers identify new patients who meet eligibility criteria for open clinical trials at the point of care, practices affiliated with US Oncology Research also gain the added benefit of identifying existing patients who may qualify for open trials through the Comprehensive 
Accrual REsource or "CARE", which is enabled through the patient information available in iKnowMed EHR. With CARE, records of patients currently on treatment, or even post-treatment, that have been entered into iKnowMed EHR can be automatically searched to find potential matches for open trials at the practice.
1 Siminoff LA, Zhang A, Colabianchi N, Sturm CM, Shen Q. Factors that predict the referral of breast cancer patients onto clinical trials by their surgeons and medical oncologists. J Clin Oncol. 2000;18(6):1203–11.