Andrea Chial, co-founder and COO of AlzWell, showcases their innovative AI platform for clinical trial matching which received the 2023 SCRS Site Tank Award. Hear the impact of streamlining site operations and helpful advice for sites interested in AI or technology implementation.
Andrea Chial, co-founder and COO of AlzWell, showcases their innovative AI platform for clinical trial matching which received the 2023 SCRS Site Tank Award. Hear the impact of streamlining site operations and helpful advice for sites interested in AI or technology implementation.
Welcome and thank you for joining the Society for Clinical Research Sites for SCRS Talks. I'm Jimmy Bechtel, the Vice President of Site Engagement with the Society. SCRS Talks allows our partners and those we work closely with to take a few minutes to address issues of industry concern, share exciting achievements, and learn more about our community. Today we have Andrea Chial, the co founder of AlzWell, here to share an exciting achievement with us. AlzWell is the recent recipient of this year's Site Tank Award, which was awarded at the 2023 Global Site Solutions Summit. Andrea, it's great to have you with us. If you wouldn't mind, we'd love to learn a little bit more about you and AlzWell.
Andrea Chial:Hi, Jimmy. Thank you for having me here. For us, it was very, very important to be a part of this site tank competition. We have been building what we're doing today, just because we wanted to help sites and be a solution for them. So let me backtrack a little bit, tell you a little bit about myself, what we've been doing and what we plan on doing next. So I myself, co founder at AlzWell. I started AlzWell about four years ago with my other co founder, Nick, who has been in the industry for about 20 plus years. So he knows what's been going out there. He has been running a site for a while and out of this site, he saw a need to find a solution for clinical trials recruiting and finding something that could make the process seamless, automatic and less manual. So four years ago we built our platform. It started as something just to inform patients of trials that were out there. Our process was very, very manual. So They would have to go on our database, find trials that would be a match for them. Then they would have to go to our clinical trial specialists that would then try to find potential trials that they could be a match for. And over the years, we saw this is very labor intensive. It took a long time. And with the growth with new technologies, we realized why don't we build something that can make the process seamless, automatic, and we can find matches in less than 30 seconds. So we looked into AI, that's been growing a lot, I'm sure you guys know what's going on with AI. So we built a tool for clinical trial matching in AlzWell.
Jimmy Bechtel:Really exciting, Andrea. And what I really like about the solution is that it was born from the site, right? Like you said, Nicholas is a site guy. He's been doing the site thing for a long time. And so that solution, which is truly the spirit of the site tank program, is an innovation technology, a solution that was born from the site. So it's great to hear. And again, I want to extend our congratulations as well for being the recent recipients of that award. So maybe, Andrea, dive a little bit more into the program, the specific solution that you submitted for the competition.
Andrea Chial:Yes, of course. So what we've built is an AI technology and under AI technology, there are lots of other subsets and the one we're looking at, it's called an LLM. So these are large language models that are trained to find information, what's out there on databases and train them to be able to find a better match or The algorithm that we have developed will scan all trials in the U. S. And we'll look at inclusion and exclusion criteria. Based on these criteria, it clusters what is generally looked for in these trials and builds different categories of what could be potential questions to find a right match for a trial. So once these clusters are formed, the AI technology will build a questionnaire around 10 questions and based on this questionnaire and based on what the patient responds, it will find a match for the patient based on their answers. And this is done in less than 30 seconds. So a process that was extremely manual that could take weeks in collaboration with the patient asking them questions. Do you fit this inclusion? Do you fit this exclusion now? It's been drilled down to 30 seconds to attend question questionnaire, the patient response, and it spits out literally the top trials that you could be highly match or eligible for. So that is sort of what we're doing. It's taking this manual long process that you need to sit down, look at inclusion exclusion, see what you're eligible for what you're not into a 10 question questionnaire and then it ranks. What are you potentially a match for and it's now down to 10 question questionnaire and 30 seconds.
Jimmy Bechtel:That's incredible, Andrea, and I think it really goes to emphasize why you received that award as determined by our panel of esteemed judges. It's something that saves the site's time and energy put towards patient recruitment and finding those patients. I think really cool about it as well is it uses some modern really futuristic concepts behind what makes it work. So thank you for sharing some of that. I think again, I hope our listeners understand and get the same wow factor that we all had when we were there in the in the audience. But let's talk a little bit about results now. What are some of the results of the platform and maybe talk about how that's impacted the site operations.
Andrea Chial:Yes, of course. So also as an online platform for caregivers for people with Alzheimer's and dementia and they come to our online platform to find all resources related to the patient. It can range from seeing where the patient location is to finding alternate treatment options. And when they look for alternate treatment options, there's a clinical trial portion of that. And what we've done is we partner with sites around the US and we try to find them The perfect matches that are on our like our online platform. So let's say there's a site in Michigan they'll reach out to us and they'll be like, hey, we have these sites Could you see if there are any potentials that you could find a match for so we try to Find people within our database that could fit that and with our 10 question question or no, we can do that faster and find more potential matches. So that's what we have been doing for the last couple months since we developed this tool. That's so fast. So innovative and seamless. It's very seamless and easy now to find someone that's eligible for a trial.
Jimmy Bechtel:That's amazing and really, really great to hear. It's exciting that it's, it's having an impact, right? That's ultimately what we can hope for. And again, I think part of the reason why you all were recipients of this year's award is because not only is it a great concept, it's been brought to life and it's The proof is in the pudding. It's starting to bring up operational efficiency at the site level. So again, more kudos to the AlzWell team. I think it's really important for us as a community to understand from innovators what we can do to also innovate at different levels. So what advice might you have for other sites that are interested in innovating or implementing AI focused or based solutions into streamlining their recruitment or their maybe their other business related operations?
Andrea Chial:So I think when people hear the word AI, they're sort of sometimes intimidated. It's something that sometimes people don't use correctly, or maybe it's not implemented the way it should be. There's also ethical issues that sometimes arise when using AI. So I think When you want to look into innovating with these technologies, you need to make sure you're doing what's best for the patient and for the sites and find potential solutions that is going to benefit both parties. I know a lot of people with the hype going on with AI, they all want to find ways to implement it, but I think it's important to find first. A team that will help you develop this. It's wasn't from day to night. It took a lot of months, weeks, a lot of brainstorming. People actually know what they're doing and that can guide you towards what you're trying to build. And if you have an idea that you want to potentially implement using AI, it's first important to take a step back and be like, do I really need AI to do this? Can technology do this. And then you take the next step. I think when people hear the words AI, there's a lot of hype. Oh, I want that. It's, it's great, innovative. But you need to take a step back and be like, is this what is really the solution for my site or what I want to do for my patients and for what I'm running? So I would say don't get fixated on yes, I want to have AI. I want to have these technologies. It's more What can I do best to innovate, whether it's using other kinds of technologies, not just AI?
Jimmy Bechtel:That's a great piece of advice, Andrea, and I appreciate that. I do have one final question I'd like to ask. What's in store for the future? What's, what's on the horizon and what are you looking forward to doing next as far as innovation with the AlzWell team?
Andrea Chial:Yes, so currently we are very focused on anything that's Alzheimer's, dementia, partnering with sites that are very focused on therapeutic side, but eventually we do grow and we do fine tune what we're doing today and our tool becomes something that can really help other sites with other conditions. We will certainly look into expanding to other diseases and conditions. So we first wanted to focus on Alzheimer's dementia because also if you see our name, it's AlzWell so very focused on Alzheimer's and dementia and research going into this condition, but if we see that we can help also other conditions with this tool that can be adapted to, let's say, cancers or other condition, other chronic conditions, then eventually we can grow our ecosystem and expand it to other diseases.
Jimmy Bechtel:Excellent, and I think a worthy endeavor and a great place for us to end our conversation today. So I know I personally look forward to what's in store for the future with the AlzWell team. And again, extend my congratulations to you and the rest of the team. Thanks for being here with us, Andrea. It was wonderful to have you and to learn a little bit more about what you all are doing.
Andrea Chial:Thank you so much, and we can't be more honored to having been recipients of this prize. It was one of our main, main, main pride points, and we're very happy to have been part of this competition.
Jimmy Bechtel:Well, everyone that's listening, make sure that you consider registering for upcoming summits being held throughout the year by visiting the summit page on our website, myscrs. org. While you're on our website, I also encourage you to check out the other SCRS publications and resources built for the community on that same website. We appreciate your participation and listening to today's program and look forward to having you join us for more great content coming out soon. Thanks for listening.