HJNO May/Jun 2019

Healthcare Journal of NEW ORLEANS I  MAY / JUN 2019 57 For weekly eNews updates and to read the journal online, visit HealthcareJournalNO.com approaching 100 percent. National survival rates** are as follows: breast, 90 percent; colon, 64 percent; lung, 18 percent; and prostate, 98 percent. The five-year survival rate is the percentage of people in a treatment group who are alive at least five years after being diagnosed with or started treatment for cancer. It is based on population averages and is not a predictor of how long any one individual diagnosed with cancer will live.The diseasemay or may not be present after the five- year mark. The Benson Cancer Center of the Ochsner Can- cer Institute is led by Brian Moore, MD, FACS, a board-certified otolaryngologist who specializes in head and neck cancer surgery. He is also the chairman of Otorhinolaryngology and Communi- cation Sciences for Ochsner Health System. According to the American Cancer Socie- ty’s recently released “Cancer Statistics, 2019,” the death rate from cancer declined 27 percent nationwide between 1991 and 2016.This national decline has been attributed to efforts focusing on smoking cessation, improved early detection,and evolving treatment approaches. “The improved outcomes for cancer patients treated at Ochsner reflect the impact of our world- class teamof cancer professionals,ourmultidisci- plinary approach to each patient, and our organ- izational commitment to improving the health of not only all Louisianans, but all citizens of the Gulf South,”said Moore. An Ochsner Health System-wide plan to aid in cancer prevention across the Gulf South is underway, aimed at improving outcomes for cancer patients in Louisiana. The plan focuses on increasing education and prevention efforts, screenings, and early detection across Loui- siana and the region. The year-one goal was to increase cancer screenings in 2018 by 40,000, and by 2022, increase additional screenings to a total of 141,000. By the end of 2018, Ochsner had reached more than 53,000 new cancer screen- ings for that year, surpassing the first-year goal with an 18 percent increase over 2017 numbers.  The Benson Cancer Center is currently under- going a $48 million addition, that will double its size..This includes a $20million gift from the Ben- sons.The expansion is scheduled to be complete in early 2020. Ochsner’s specialists treat more than 32,000 cancer patients annually, from all 50 states and 28 countries.  *The reported data is of all stages (localized, regional and distant) at diagnosis combined and not divided by race, 2008-2014. **Source: Cancer.Net Ochsner, Pfizer Partner to Develop Models for Clinical Trials Ochsner Health System and Pfizer Inc. have entered into a multi-year strategic alliance to develop innovative models for clinical tri- als. Through this partnership,Pfizer and Ochsner — through its innovation lab, innovationOchsner (iO), in partnership with Ochsner Research—will explore ways to enhance the clinical trial experi- ence and ease participation in clinical research for both patients and healthcare professionals. The alliance aims to create faster, improved access and connectivity to clinical trials for patients, with the ultimate goal of better experi- ences and outcomes. Participating patients will have the opportunity to test out new digital tools designed to make the clinical trial experience more inclusive and enjoyable. Participating clini- cians will benefit from reducedmanual data entry as a result of direct data system integration and automated study conduct tools, freeing up time andwork to allow them to offer clinical research as an option to a broader range of patients.Research groups will experience efficiencies from interop- erability that may lower costs while increasing capacity. These projects are designed to ensure that all data collected is secure and will only be used with patient consent, as in any clinical trial. “As a national leader in healthcare, Ochsner is delivering on itsmission to bring themost innova- tive ideas to our patients.We are relentless about using the latest breakthroughs in science and technology to solve some of the toughest health- care challenges,” said Dr. Richard Milani, Ochs- ner’s chief clinical transformation officer and medical director of iO. “Partnering with Pfizer allows us to transformmedicine by creating a dig- ital clinical trial experience that improves patient participation, integration, communication, and accessibility.”  The strategic alliance’s first project began with a“proof of value”phase inwhich researchers suc- cessfully transferred mock data (e.g. no actual patient data was used or shared) fromOchsner’s EHR system to Pfizer’s electronic data capture system used in Pfizer clinical trials. The experi- ment aimed at understanding the gaps and vari- ances between data collected in electronic health records and patient-reported data from clinical trials. Since the inception of electronic health records (EHRs), integrating EHR data into clinical trial databases has been a goal of research institu- tions, industry, and regulators. Such integra- tion would reduce the burden of manual data entry, save time, decrease cost, and accelerate clinical trials. The ongoing challenge has been exchanging data between healthcare systems and clinical trial systems, because each uses different technology platforms and data stand- ards. In recent years, Fast Healthcare Interop- erability Resources, or FHIR®, a standard devel- oped by the nonprofit organization Health Level Seven International (HL7), has been introduced as a secure and open solution for healthcare data exchange to accelerate information shar- ing. Most health apps use FHIR data standards, but FHIR has yet to be adopted for data exchange in industry-sponsored clinical trials.As one of the first health systems to implement FHIR, Ochs- ner has continuously explored opportunities to use the standards in other applications, including clinical trials. The Ochsner-Pfizer alliance project aims to build amodel for applying FHIR standards so that high-quality clinical trial data may be col- lected consistently, reliably, and securely within hospital and clinic electronic systems. “We’re pleased that we succeeded in transfer- ring core data types collected in healthcare pro- vider electronic health records to Pfizer’s clinical trial data capture systemusing FHIR standards.To the best of our knowledge, this is a first for our industry,”explained Rob Goodwin, vice president, Operations Center of Excellence, Global Prod- uct Development at Pfizer.  “There is more work ahead,but this is a significant step forward in sim- plifying data capture for clinical trials,and the first of many pioneering solutions we hope to develop through our partnership with Ochsner.”