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# Diversifying Endocrinology Research with Optimized Trials
## May 31, 2024
According to recent research, endocrine disorders are more common in racial and ethnic minorities in the US.1 For example, 7.1% of non-Hispanic white Americans have diagnosed diabetes, compared to 11.8% of Hispanic Americans, 12.6% of non-Hispanic black Americans, and 16.1% of Native Americans and Alaskan natives.1 Though there are many possible reasons for these disparities, data suggest that they’re largely due to the problems American people of racial and ethnic minorities have accessing preventive care and treatment.1
Engaging patients in their care has been shown to improve health outcomes, and involving patients in treatment and medication creation via clinical research participation is a very effective way to better engage them in their care.2 However, the Black/African American and Hispanic/Latino research participation rate is often as low as just 10.6%.3
If we want to improve endocrine-related outcomes for underserved communities, we must first engage them in endocrinology research. How? Through Elligo Health Research’s .
## **Optimized Trials Improve Patient Identification**
While the traditional clinical trial enrollment process can be effective, it does not easily support patient identification based on demographics such as race, ethnicity, geography, or disease severity. Elligo’s optimized trials, however, use HIPAA-compliant EHR data and  to target and engage with specific patient groups. First, our experts use proprietary AI technology to search an abundance of EHR data from hospitals, major health systems, and healthcare-based sites, identifying previously untapped patients. We then carefully review each identified patient’s medical records to parse out only those with the right clinical picture for the trial.
With optimized trials, you can select the most ideal and diverse patients for your trial before screening.
## **Optimized Trials Enable a Patient-Centric Approach to Study Execution**
Many minority groups are unable and/or unwilling to participate in clinical trials because they live far away from research sites, are uncomfortable or untrusting of researchers from outside their communities, or simply aren’t aware of research opportunities. Optimized trials solve these issues by running virtual and hybrid trials through Elligo’s Healthcare-First research network.
Healthcare-First sites are hospitals, doctor’s offices, pharmacies, and other healthcare facilities where patients routinely seek care that have added research into their practice with comprehensive infrastructure, training, and technology, all supported by Elligo Health Research®. Because they allow patients to participate with their trusted physicians and in their local communities, Healthcare-First sites make research participation more accessible and more attractive. After all, engaging with patients in their communities is one of the most effective methods for increasing clinical trial diversity.4
## **Diversify Your Endocrinology Clinical Trial Enrollment With Elligo**
Unlike other research models that try to fit patient needs into a trial, our optimized trials start with the patients to enhance identification, engagement, and execution for the benefit of everyone involved.
 today to explore how we can optimize your endocrinology research and, ultimately, bring better care to traditionally underserved populations.
**References**
1. Golden, S.H., et al. . J Clin Endocrinol Metab. Published 2012 Sept.
2. Krist, A.H., et al. . Published 2017.
3. Flores, L.E., et al. . JAMA Netw Open. Published 2021 Feb. 19.
4. Igwe, J.K., et al. . Journal of the American Heart Association. Published 2023 Dec. 18.
## When you need direct access to physicians and their known patients or research practice management solutions to accelerate your clinical trials, there’s Only Elligo.
© 2025 Elligo Health Research. All Rights Reserved.
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Video
# Our Personal Inspiration
## December 5, 2022
At Elligo Health Research®, our mission of increasing patient access to clinical research began because of a life cut short. Check out our founder’s story & visit
< to see how it’s spurred a revolution in accessibility while accelerating clinical trials.
The story of this video isn’t one that’s unique to our founder. Every day, people who could benefit from clinical research are unable to access clinical trials even though sites often face enrollment difficulties. At Elligo Health Research, we focus on patient centricity and promote clinical trial awareness in order to overcome the traditional barriers to clinical research participation for sites, sponsors, and patients.
Brochure
# Overview Brochure
## November 11, 2022
Elligo Health Research offers direct access to known patients with their trusted physicians and research practice management solutions. Learn more in our brochure.
# A Patient’s Life-Changing Experience With Diabetes Research
## November 2, 2023
What are the benefits of clinical research for real, everyday patients? Can one clinical trial change who you are as a person? As a parent? Watch one man’s story of his battle with diabetes and how a patient-centric clinical trial at the Elligo Clinical Research Center changed his life for the better.
# Optimized Trials: Propelling Research Forward with Healthcare-First Sites
## May 24, 2024
The clinical research industry has reached a pivotal point in its evolution where patient centricity and the personalized medicine movement have aligned with the marked expansion of hybrid and site-less decentralized trials. According to reports,i approximately 31% of clinical trials included decentralized elements in 2019. Today, that has grown to 39% and continued growth is expected. Quite simply, the future of clinical research must be optimized for patient comfort and access; the future of clinical research is optimized trials.
## What Are “Optimized Trials” Exactly?
“Optimized trials” is an emerging term. At Elligo, we define optimized trials as follows:
*Optimized trials* are virtual-first clinical trials that create the optimal conditions for 1) patients to have simple, effective, comfortable access to research as a care option and 2) sponsors to quickly and easily enroll and retain eligible, engaged patients.
## The Role of Physician-Patient Relationships in Optimized Trials
One of the cornerstone goals of clinical trial optimization is to accelerate the advancement of medicine while improving access to research as a care option for patients. We have put the physician–patient relationship at the heart of meeting this goal.
Patients generally build trust and rapport with their known medical providers. They are comfortable and used to connecting with those individuals and their teams in familiar, accessible locations. That’s why Elligo has created its Healthcare-First site network, which is made up of medical providers who have incorporated research into their practice through end-to-end support from Elligo. By tapping into these trusted relationships, sponsors can decrease the traditional burden associated with starting up a research practice and conducting clinical trials and improve the patient experience.
Elligo’s physician–patient relationship-based site network enables a pipeline of studies tailored to your research interests and patients’ needs. With accelerated and efficient study participant matching, exclusive trials in high-interest indications aligned to therapeutic focus (such as cardiology, pulmonology, psychiatry, neurology, endocrinology, family and internal medicine, etc.), and the ability to offer new research as care options to patients, the “why” behind establishing optimized trials through a Healthcare-First site network is clear.
## 5 Ways to Facilitate Optimized Trials
While both traditional and site-less trials will continue to have a place in the evolving clinical trial landscape, we have seen sponsors have the most success with the hybrid trial model of research optimization. Here are some of the key benefits of the optimized hybrid trials Elligo facilitates through our ®solution:
* Sponsors receive access to our Healthcare-First site network, which is comprised of doctors who have added research into their practice
* Elligo fully manages the site relationship on behalf of sponsors with central oversight of primary and sub-investigators
* All  sites operate under one contract and one budget, creating efficiency in working within this network vs. with multiple sites and multiple contracts and budgets
* The Elligo Healthcare-First site network serves communities that typically haven’t had access to research, allowing for increased diversity in accordance with the latest regulatory guidance and mandates
* We achieve optimized patient identification, enrollment, and study execution through HIPAA-compliant EHR data plus AI-powered analytics
## The Intersection of Healthcare and Research
As the ultimate healthcare-enabling research organization, Elligo optimizes the intersection of healthcare and research, maintains the integrity of the trusted patient–physician relationship, and leverages EHR data to accelerate the development of new pharmaceuticals, biotechnologies, medical devices, and diagnostic products while bringing more patients clinical research as a care option.
Optimized trials and Healthcare-First sites go hand in hand, and we are proud to be at the forefront of both creating and empowering this next phase of clinical trial evolution.
Ready to add optimized trials to your research?  today to get started.
1  Nov 2020 PPD DCT Survey Report: <
2 Nov 2023 PPD Pulse Report: <
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Article
# 3 Reasons Optimized Trials Are Ideal for Pulmonary and Respiratory Research
## June 17, 2024
The complexity of pulmonary and respiratory clinical trials often makes patient enrollment and retention even more challenging. With the risk of termination heightened by an array of shifting patient symptoms and common comorbidities and medications that conflict with standard inclusion/exclusion criteria — not to mention continuity of care concerns — solutions have to be built in at the foundation of your trial.
Enrolling and retaining patients is easier with optimized trials, which proactively address new solutions and augment existing ones using a patient-centric approach. Read our article for 3 reasons optimized trials are the right choice for meeting the challenges of pulmonary and respiratory research head-on.
Download the article now to learn:
* How research complexity adds to patient enrollment and retention difficulties
* What optimized trials are and their benefits
* 3 ways optimized trials solve enrollment and retention issues in pulmonary and respiratory research
### Get Your Copy Now
# Optimized Psychiatry Clinical Trials as a Path to Fixing the Severe Mental Illness Care Access Gap
Though  has come a long way in recent years, patients with severe mental illness (SMI) are still at a higher risk of premature death when compared to the general population because of somatic illnesses that aren’t recognized in time or treated sufficiently.1 New interventions, developed and often deployed through clinical research, are often necessary to fix this problem.
However, there are many barriers that stand between patients with SMI and clinical trial participation, including practical hurdles like location, transportation, and associated costs as well as reduced functioning, stigmatization, and discrimination in the healthcare system brought on by SMI. How can we bring more patients with SMI into clinical research to solve this care access gap?
Elligo Health Research’s  — trials that run through a combination of healthcare-first site visits and centralized virtual processes and are supported by HIPAA-compliant electronic health record (EHR) data and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered analytics — are an exciting solution.
## **What Research Says about Optimized Trials and SMI Clinical Trial Enrollment**
A study in Denmark sought to understand the challenges of recruiting research participants with SMI by evaluating the use of general practitioners (GPs) as researchers in a clinical trial. It found that being familiar with the patient was important for successful recruitment. In fact, 95% of the SMI patients invited to participate in the trial by their general practitioners agreed!1
This study underscores what Elligo Health Research® has already experienced: optimized trials are ideal for reaching previously underserved populations such as patients with SMI.
Optimized trials are effective because they meet patients where they’re most comfortable. By bringing research to patients — in their communities with their trusted healthcare providers — optimized trials overcome practical barriers such as transportation, associated costs, and location as well as the delicate mental state and reduced functioning of such patients. Meeting patients where they’re comfortable also helps reduce the stigmatization and discrimination SMI patients regularly face in the healthcare system because they’re working with trusted providers who understand them and know their medical history.
Optimized trials can also improve outcomes for patients with SMI beyond research, as continuity of care, such as participating in a clinical trial through a GP, has been shown to reduce acute hospitalization and mortality.1
## **But What about EHR Data?**
The study in Denmark found that identifying possible trial participants using practice records was challenging, as GPs participating in the study reported that their record systems lacked the ability to isolate valid data. Because of misleading and/or missing data, more than 26% of patients eligible to participate in the trial were never contacted.1
Elligo’s optimized trials have the solution: AI-powered analytics. Optimized trials use  to turn unstructured EHR data into a research-grade registry of searchable records and subsequently match eligible patients with trials, resulting in rapid, accurate identification and enrollment.
## **Patient Travel Services for When Healthcare-First Sites aren’t Available**
What happens when trials cannot be run by Healthcare-First sites in patients’ communities?
In these cases,  are essential. This is especially true for patients with SMI, as travel can be incredibly challenging for clinical trial participants in delicate mental states. Travel services are essential because they go a long way toward easing the burden of trial-related travel, ensuring patients with SMI have the support they need to comfortably and safely get where they need to go.
## **Optimize Your Psychiatry Clinical Trials with Elligo**
Not only does Elligo’s optimized trial model increase access to research as care for patients with SMI, but it also elevates trial execution. Healthcare-First sites in Elligo’s network operate under one contract and one budget, creating efficiencies that translate into cost and time savings. They’re also supported by Elligo investigators and central oversight, ensuring the highest quality research.
Healthcare inequality for patients with SMI doesn’t have to be the status quo.  for optimized trials that will break down research access barriers and ultimately improve mental healthcare outcomes.
**Reference**
1Tranberg, K., et al. . Pilot and Feasibility Studies. Published 2023 Oct. 31.
One-Pager
# Elligo’s Solutions for Sponsors
## December 2, 2022
Only Elligo Health Research® offers customizable Patient*Select*® and Site*Select*service models and proprietary technology to empower and enable research in diagnostics, drugs, biologics, and devices in all phases and indications.
# Elligo’s DataAI Connect
## November 21, 2022
Only Elligo Health Research® offers a scalable, end-to-end data platform to source, process, analyze, and distribute patient real-world data (RWD).