The research taking place on the UNMC/Nebraska Medicine campus is critically important work to the lives of our patients and those around the world. Recent advances in research have led to a cure for hepatitis C and longer survival rates for patients with cancers such as breast cancer, leukemia and lymphoma.
This great work could not happen without patients willing to take part in a clinical trial. Just last month, UNMC revamped its clinical trials public search website, aimed at making it easier for potential participants to find relevant research studies.
“We wanted to provide a better user experience for the public and allow for easier participation for UNMC study coordinators and principal investigators,” said Shannon Leaders, programmer/analyst for ITS Application Services. “The site has been made easier to read and navigate and the new design is responsive and mobile-device friendly.”
“We have so much exciting research happening here, and many people don’t even realize it,” says Christopher Kratochvil, M.D., associate vice chancellor for clinical research at UNMC and vice president of research for Nebraska Medicine.
That was a motivating factor in improving the website, which now allows users to browse studies in more than 50 medical areas. There also is a special section identifying studies for healthy volunteers to participate.
As Leaders worked to improve the site, she created an application to pull data from the government’s clinical trials website, ClinicalTrials.gov, where most UNMC studies are already being submitted, to populate UNMC’s site.
“This eliminates the need for study coordinators or PIs to submit their study information to more than one site,” Leaders said. “Once it is on ClinicalTrials.gov, it will automatically appear on UNMC’s site. Any updates also are picked up automatically every night.
“A separate application runs each night to take the conditions, keywords, and MeSH (Medical Subject Headings) terms applied to each study in ClinicalTrials.gov and use them to tie studies to medical areas that can make it easier to search on UNMC’s website,” she said.
Potential participants can send an email to request more information on a particular study and also see other studies the investigator and coordinator are conducting.
There are currently 241 studies available for viewing on the UNMC clinical trials search website, which is located at unmc.edu/clinicaltrials.