Holistic Analytics Improves the Clinical Trials Selection Process at Hollings Cancer Center

Selecting the right trials greatly impacts a cancer center’s ability to fulfill the mission of helping save the lives of cancer patients, but it is a complicated process involving multiple stakeholders and often lacking systematic analysis. We worked with the clinical and administrative leadership of Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) to revamp the process of trial prioritization and selection to maximize the positive impact of HCC’s infrastructure on serving the cancer patient population across South Carolina and the surrounding states. At the core of our project was systematic development and deployment of a multiple-criteria prioritization tool to identify high net impact trials with respect to clinical outcomes and resource usage. HCC has integrated our framework and tool into its trials selection process. It has resulted in more stringent selection of trials (a decrease from a 26% to 17% approval rate), an increased percentage of closed trials meeting/exceeding patient accrual target (an increase from 20% to 39%), and a reduced accrual variance vis-à-vis target (a decrease from 43% to 29% less than the target).

History: This paper was refereed.

Funding: This work was supported by University of South Carolina – Operations and Supply Chain Center.