The Benefits of AI to Humanise Clinical Trials
Artificial Intelligence has been a hot topic in recent years, and rightly so, as it offers enormous opportunities for progression if utilised and managed correctly.
This blog post will specifically explore the benefits of AI to humanise clinical trials and what that means for the healthcare system, in particular for women.
Sadly, women have historically been excluded from clinical trials, but now, artificial intelligence offers the opportunity to provide meaningful impact for the general public as well as healthcare professionals.
If you have ever been interested in clinical trials, either as a participant or a potential benefactor, I would encourage you to read on to understand more about the benefits of AI to humanise clinical trials.
What Are Clinical Trials?
Clinical trials are research studies of new medications, treatments or devices to analyse their effectiveness compared to other readily available treatments.
They may involve patients, healthy people or a combination of both.
The data gathered from these trials determines whether the treatments get approval to be used outside of those research settings.
They are essential for the discovery and implementation of prescribed or therapeutic drugs.
How Can We Use AI to Humanise Clinical Trials?
As a general rule of thumb, we use AI to make our lives easier.
Take the most commonly used format of AI as an example, Chat GPT.
The majority of the general public might use Chat GPT to write a letter, to come up with research ideas for their coursework or even to write articles like this one.
Chat GPT receives the prompt we supply and trawls the internet to find the most suitable response, all done within a matter of seconds.
But perhaps a more important usage of AI is to create a more inclusive society that doesn’t exclude anyone from accessing the benefits of artificial intelligence, particularly related to health and clinical trials.
Now, imagine a piece of software that uses artificial intelligence to effectively pair cancer patients to clinical trials who may have exhausted all other treatment methods.
This is exactly what Ancora.ai is doing right now.
What is Ancora.ai and how is it using artificial intelligence to humanise clinical trials in the healthcare space?
Ancora.ai helps people quickly look up clinical trial information without the need to read through pages and pages of medical research papers that often mean very little to someone who doesn’t come from a medical background.
The artificial intelligence in this software uses natural language processing, a type of technology that takes advantage of linguistics, which it then encodes into the software and then uses statistical methods to help analyse the text, in this instance, clinical trial research information.
This allows the software to ingest a huge amount of text, based specifically on clinical trial information, removing the need to read through pages of data to find specific information related to a patient’s illness.
However, Ancora.ai goes even further, by matching patients to clinical trials.
The AI software uses information provided in a short survey by the patient, such as the type of cancer they have or previous treatment they have undergone, which can help find relevant trial options.
If you’d like to know more about Ancora.ai click the link to visit their website.
What Are The Benefits of AI to Humanise Clinical Trials?
The CEO and founder of Ancora.ai, Danielle Ralic, has spent most of her career implementing tech solutions for hospitals, the public health department and pharmaceuticals.
Ralic decided she did not want the onus to be solely placed on the patient to find alternative therapies, especially while undergoing traditional cancer treatment.
She built an alternative platform specifically designed for healthcare professionals and institutions to take advantage of the benefits of AI to humanise clinical trials without the need to spend hours matching patients to trials.
Current access to clinical trials is available to very few people and Danielle has made it her mission to change that imbalance.
Some of the direct benefits of AI on humanising clinical trials were felt when Ralic and her team created an impact report.
Some 67% of people who used Ancora.ai said they were interested in joining a clinical trial within the next 6 months, others explained they felt like they were out of options and didn’t know what to do next.
Others felt that if they had had access to this information earlier they may have been able to help colleagues, family or friends who sadly passed away due to the illness.
The benefits of AI will grow as more people and healthcare professionals get on board with AI as a means to humanise and democratise clinical trials, opening access for all and not just the select few.
Thankfully healthcare professionals are starting to better understand the benefits of AI within the healthcare arena as a means to get back to basics with patients, spending more time caring for them, diagnosing them quicker and having more time to interact and speak with their patients.
This can be achieved by leveraging AI to reduce paperwork, collect accurate and up-to-date data and screen patients more efficiently.
In terms of clinical trials, AI can match patients to the most relevant trials, predict their effectiveness, detect adverse effects, as well as help researchers find patterns and relationships within the data.
If you’d like to hear more from Danielle, head over to the Narratives of Purpose podcast episode: On Humanising Clinical Trials with AI - Women's Health Series with Danielle Ralic.
That episode was recorded during the first AI For Life summit in Geneva, Switzerland where Danielle appeared as a panelist.
What Are The Benefits of AI to Humanise Clinical Trials For Women?
Historically women have been excluded from medical research and were only permitted to join clinical trials in 1993.
Between 1997 and 2000, 80% of the drugs that were removed from the market in the US were due to adverse side effects almost exclusively in women.
That statistic alone demonstrates the gap in women’s healthcare that potentially could be fixed, or at the very least, made significantly smaller by artificial intelligence.
Despite women making up around 50% of the population, women’s health has long been considered a niche subject.
Thankfully, things are starting to change, as more women advocate for their own health needs.
One of the benefits of AI to humanise clinical trials is to open the doors to women who would like to participate in clinical trials that previously have not had the opportunity.
There is a real need for accurate and up-to-date research and data regarding women’s health, ultimately creating a more inclusive space within the healthcare industry.
For too long women have been at an unfair disadvantage in healthcare, largely due to the lack of female-led data emanating from clinical trials, which have been disproportionately dominated by men.
Even today, many symptoms commonly associated with diagnosing illnesses such as heart disease still favour male biology, for example, the general population is taught that someone suffering from a heart attack will experience chest pain and discomfort but women are more likely to suffer from shortness of breath, vomiting and back or jaw pain.
As more women join clinical trials, the balance of fairness will be more evenly weighted to include the unique experiences of women and how their bodies react to certain treatments.
The Future of AI and Clinical Trials
The benefits of AI to humanise clinical trials can be measured not only by the demand for patient-led access to clinical trial research and participation but also by healthcare professionals who are being thwarted by spiralling levels of admin and bureaucracy.
From the point of view of the patient, AI can humanise clinical trials by condensing the volume of information available and bringing the patient into direct contact with the most relevant clinical trials for their specific needs.
From a physician's point of view, AI can humanise clinical trials by reducing the time healthcare professionals need to research and find the right trials for their patients. This will allow doctors and nurses to spend more time caring for their patients, finding the most relevant solutions for their diagnosis and treating them more quickly and effectively.
The future of AI within the health space is bright as demand grows for greater access.
Using AI to humanise clinical trials and bridge the gap between physicians and the public can only be achieved by working together and understanding the universal benefits for all parties involved.
If you’d like to delve deeper into the world of AI, healthcare and how that affects women, please visit the Narratives of Purpose podcast women’s health special series for more inspiring stories from global changemakers.
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