CAMBRIDGE, MA-June 9, 2011-Today, PatientsLikeMe announces the launch of a new feature that helps patients find clinical trials that are right for them and helps companies find patients who are right for their trial. The feature, which updates daily with all of the trial information listed on ClinicalTrial.gov, will automatically match up members of the website with every clinical trial they may be eligible for based on their conditions and location.
"It's difficult for patients to find trials and for investigators to find patients," says Jamie Heywood,co-founder and chairman of PatientsLikeMe. "We can easily help solve both of those problems by telling each of our 100,000+ patients what trials they're eligible for and by showing each trial sponsor how many patients they can reach."
PatientsLikeMe is also improving its clinical trial awareness service for companies, nonprofits,and academia. Trial investigators can now find their trial listed on PatientsLikeMe, see and search for eligible patients that match their criteria, as well as purchase enhanced listings that include the ability to message eligible patients anonymously through targeted email.
Heywood adds "This opens up access for companies to target their outreach to the right patients. Together, we can make trial enrollment faster, more efficient and more accessible to the people that need them - patients."
Heywood was invited to present PatientsLikeMe's new feature at the Institute of Medicine's Health Data Initiative Forum today in Washington, D.C. To try out the new feature, go to:
http://www.patientslikeme.com/clinical_trials.
About the Health Data Initiative Forum The Health Data Initiative Forum is an event to accelerate momentum for the public use of data and innovation to improve health and support more informed decision-making by onsumers/patients,health care systems, and community officials. The Forum includes a number of fast-paced demonstrations of a range of tools and applications developed using health data, as well as a series of discussion sessions and a data and apps exposition. It is co-hosted by the Institute of Medicine, the health branch of the National Academy of Sciences, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
The Forum can be viewed live online at http://www.hhs.gov/live starting at 9:00 am EST. The hashtag to follow on Twitter is #healthapps.
About PatientsLikeMe
PatientsLikeMe® (www.patientslikeme.com) is the world's leading online health data sharing platform. PatientsLikeMe® creates new knowledge by charting the real-world course of disease through the shared experiences of patients. While patients interact to help improve their outcomes, the data they provide helps researchers learn how these diseases act in the real world and accelerate the discovery of new, more effective treatments. [Follow company news on Twitter.com/PatientsLikeMe and http://blog.patientslikeme.com]