Flatiron Health and ACCC partner to increase access to cancer clinical trials

ACCC will use Flatiron Clinical Pipe to improve efficiency of clinical studies and research

The Association of Cancer Care Centers (ACCC) is a network of more than 40,000 multidisciplinary practitioners from cancer care communities around the country, with aims to introduce their practices to new technologies that can overcome workforce shortages, increase clinical trial capabilities, reduce health disparities, and improve patient care.

On Monday, the company announced a partnership with Flatiron Health, a healthcare technology and services company focused on accelerating cancer research and improving patient care. ACCC will use the Flatiron Clinical Pipe EHR-to-EDC connector to promote increased access to cancer clinical trials.

"Flatiron Clinical Pipe helps create a new trial experience by unlocking higher data quality with more efficient data management. It is able to capture and transfer study data quickly, with accuracy, reducing queries, accelerating data cleaning timelines and hitting study milestones faster," said Ivy Altomare, MD, Head of Research Oncology, Clinical Research at Flatiron Health.

"Potentially reducing the burden of clinical trials for sites by providing access to Flatiron Clinical Pipe increases the clinical trial capabilities of their sites and will hopefully expand the amount of sites able to conduct trials, opening more opportunities and increased access for patients."

Flatiron Clinical Pipe offers opportunities for both sponsors and CROS, as well as clinical sites. For sponsors and CROs managing many time-sensitive trials, Flatiron Clinical Pipe is an EHR-to-EDC connector; it integrates with EHRs and EDCs, lowers data monitoring costs and supports improved site workflows, providing confidence in hitting study data cleaning timelines and the ability to start analyzing data sooner. 

For sites, Flatiron Clinical Pipe is embedded directly into the EHR enabling the capture and transfer of both structured and unstructured data in only a few clicks, including labs, medications, vital signs, adverse events, and past medical/surgical history, among others. 

Flatiron Clinical Pipe is currently available at over 85 community oncology clinics and academic medical centers, consisting of over 300 unique sites of care.

In a retrospective analysis of Flatiron Clinical Pipe use at three US AMCs across four Phase 1 studies, the company found that the average time in Clinical Pipe per case report form (CRF) was 2.69 minutes, including patient linking, EDC launch, and EHR data search, while average CRF completion time was 54 seconds. In addition, time in Clinical Pipe per submission decreased by greater than 50% with 10 or more submissions.

Additionally, in a recent pilot study with a pharmaceutical company, Flatiron Clinical Pipe users saw an average of one hour of time savings per patient visit on laboratory data entry alone.

"The data transferred directly mirrors the EHR, reducing time-intensive and duplicative data entry tasks; increasing data quality, particularly on high value data, given fewer transcription errors; and decreasing data latency which enables more real-time decisions during a trial," Altomare explained. 

Founded in 1974, ACCC represents multidisciplinary care teams at over 1,700 cancer centers throughout the US. The organization brings together stakeholders in the cancer care community to create solutions to improve the patient experience and patient outcomes, providing education, resources, and tools to the professional oncology community.

ACCC also serves alongside Flatiron as a member of CancerX, a public-private partnership announced by The White House as a part of the Biden Cancer Moonshot.

There are two parts to Flatiron’s collaboration with ACCC, the first being a research initiative, which is a collaboration with ACCC and ACORI (ACCC Community Oncology Research Institute) on a project to study the characteristics of clinical trials that are being run at community oncology practices.

The second is an operational collaboration to help raise awareness about the technology available to streamline and improve the efficiency of clinical trial conduct and lessen the burden of data entry for cancer clinical trials, including Flatiron Clinical Pipe.

Through this partnership, ACCC will help identify cancer sites looking to enhance their clinical trial capabilities by using Flatiron’s Clinical Pipe technology to decrease the administrative and data entry burden that can come with clinical trial enrollment.

For interested ACCC member sites, Flatiron Clinical Pipe will be embedded directly into their EHR systems and follow the onboarding process of other Clinical Pipe sites.

"This partnership is an opportunity to further showcase how innovative and cutting-edge technology can support community cancer centers, opening additional avenues to support positive patient outcomes and clinical settings," said Altomare.