UCLH clinicians have developed a digital database of research studies called Find a Study.
Clinicians – at UCLH and elsewhere – can use the database to suggest suitable research studies happening at UCLH to their patients, and patients and members of the public can search the database for trials they may wish to take part in.
The database has been built with clinical IT design principles in mind, meaning it can be integrated with other clinical systems such as Epic, the electronic health record system at UCLH.
Find a Study has been developed by a team led by Dr Wai Keong Wong, consultant haematologist and chief research information officer at UCLH.
Aims of Find a Study include to:
- aid recruitment of participants to clinical trials at UCLH
- increase awareness of research studies
- increase transparency around research
Find a Study supports study recruitment, awareness and transparency in several ways.
First, as the system can link up with Epic, clinicians and patients are much more likely to use the database as Epic is used routinely in the course of care at the hospital.
Second, Find a Study is user-friendly and from the home page users are only one of two mouse-clicks or screen taps away from seeing all studies at UCLH, or studies filtered by disease.
Third, the database allows users to search for studies using very refined criteria, making it easy to find studies suited to each patient.
Finally, the system is shaped by the people who use it. With one click from the Find a Study homepage, users can send in feedback to the Find a Study team on usability and the technical aspects of the system. A patient group is feeding into the design of the database and a project is underway to improve the accessibility of trial information.
The database is in continuous development, with a mobile app planned in future. An auto-matching system is also planned, where Find a Study automatically suggests which study a patient is suitable for. It will do this via its link up with Epic.
Find a Study is based on a platform called Keytrials, also developed by Dr Wong alongside colleagues at the UCLH Clinical Research and Informatics Unit, which is part of the BRC.
UCLH developed Keytrials as an open platform that uses IT standards that are well known in clinical informatics. It is therefore designed to be used by other NHS Trusts who can build their own versions of Find a Study, making it easier to embed research within NHS Trusts.
Use of Keytrials could ultimately be scaled across the whole of the NHS. During the Covid pandemic UCLH used Keytrials to provide an online searchable database of all studies in COVID-19 being carried out at Shelford Group Trusts – 10 of the leading academic NHS Trusts in the country.
Visit the Find a Study website.
Find out more about the work of the UCLH Clinical Research and Informatics Unit at the BRC.
