TrialX: Using Semantic Technologies to Match Patients to Relevant Clinical Trials Based on Their Personal Health Records

Clinical trials form a critical link in the translation of basic biological research into routine clinical practice. However, finding eligible participants for clinical trials is a critical hurdle and a frequent cause for delays in the completion of trials. The lack of comprehensive, efficient, and consumer-friendly online tools has limited consumers’ ability to pro-actively find the right clinical trials and participate in them. The rising use of Internet as a medium for seeking health information and the advent of online Personal Health Records (PHRs) platforms such as Microsoft HealthVault (MHV) and Google Health (GH) have created the opportunity to change the status quo. These platforms are connected to databases of several healthcare organizations and enable patients to import their medical record and utilize it for self-management by using third-party applications built on these platforms. In this paper we discuss TrialX, a consumer-centric tool that matches patients to clinical trials by extracting their PHR information and linking it to the most relevant clinical trials using semantic web technologies. We use an ontology, HealthOnt, that provides the underlying representation for integration and semantic retrieval of health data and clinical trials. TrialX is currently live and integrated with both MHV and GH and has matched thousands of patients to clinical trials in the last 12 months.