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Amazon Gathers Thread In Decentralised Trials Alliance

Amazon's latest push into the healthcare arena is focusing on one of the top new trends in clinical research – the shift towards decentralised trials.

Amazon Web Services has teamed up with Thread, a US technology company that has developed a decentralised clinical trials (DCT) platform based on artificial intelligence and machine learning, to enhance and scale up the technology.

The two companies are working on a new machine learning architecture for the cloud-enabled platform that, according to the partners, will beef up automation in the system and help it to "serve as the backbone for modern clinical research by enabling faster, more efficient clinical trials."

The new automation features are designed to speed up the initiation of co-created and configured trials by reducing the start-up time to onboard users of the platform by as much as 30% and cut inefficiencies by a third.

AWS and Thread also reckon they can provide cost savings of around 25% by allowing "pre-completion" of data, reducing data capture and removing source data verification.

Other improvements will provide trial sponsors with additional tools to monitor the progress of a DCT by providing richer data in real time.

The adoption of DCTs was a major factor in allowing clinical trials to continue during the early stages of the pandemic, embedding the approach in the clinical research toolkit as a way to make it easier for patients to participate in studies from their own homes, rather than through clinic visits.

DCTs can also reduce costs and improve the efficiency of trials, say proponents, although concerns have been expressed that their reliance on digital technologies could compound disparities in access to clinical research among some demographics.

By joining with AWS, Thread is "empowering our customers to automate data capture and storage and at the same time providing predictive forecasts to better run studies and decrease the time it takes to conduct research," said Scott Pearson, the company's chief product officer.The move also allows Thread to piggyback on AWS' global network, allowing it to operate at a scale that would have been impossible as a standalone player in the increasingly competitive DCT field.

There's no shortages of other players seeking to make the most of the renewed interest in DCT stimulated by the pandemic. One rival in the category – Medable – has taken a different approach, joining forces with CVS to deploy DCT software at thousands of the pharmacy chain's MinuteClinics across the US.

Doctors Use Emojis, Too

In one hospital's secure clinical texting system, emojis and emoticons were primarily used to share new information or convey added meaning, suggesting that concerns about the professionalism of their use may be unfounded, according to a qualitative study.

Within a sample of over 1,300 threads among 80 hospitalists who sent messages using a clinical texting system at a large Midwestern hospital, emojis or emoticons were used emotively in 61% of cases, and 32% served to start, maintain, or finish a conversation, reported Colin Halverson, PhD, of the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, and co-authors.

Overall, there was no evidence that use of these emojis or emoticons led to any confusion or were considered inappropriate by the user who received the message, they noted in JAMA Network Open.

"Clinicians are using emoji [and] emoticons, but they do not appear to be using them in ways that other writers have worried about," Halverson told MedPage Today. "For instance, they appear to disambiguate rather than cause confusion. They add information rather than appear purely decorative, humorous, or playful, and they do not appear to be taken up as unprofessional by recipients."

"More research is warranted, but our data suggest that emoji [and] emoticons are generally used in prosocial ways, in commiserating, building interprofessional relationships, clarifying attitudes, and softening the impact of demands [or] requests," he added.

In an invited commentary, Shuhan He, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Somerville, and co-authors agreed that emojis have the potential to improve and further clarify communication between clinicians, their patients, and their colleagues.

"This research carries important implications, as it suggests that emoji and emoticons are crucial in professional medical communication," they wrote.

They also suggested that use of emojis in healthcare messaging has several advantages, such as universal appeal. However, they recommended that a universal emoji-based language system be adopted by major medical societies to facilitate the appropriate widespread use of emojis in clinical messaging.

"As digital health technology continues to advance, embracing the potential of emoji as a language for health can substantially enhance communication, ultimately improving patient care," they concluded.

For this qualitative analysis, Halverson and team analyzed 1,319 messaging threads sent to or from 80 hospitalists at one Midwestern U.S. Hospital from July 2020 through March 2021. They selected a random subset of 1% of the 129,360 message threads exchanged in a secure clinical messaging platform with those selected hospitalists, who were chosen because of their high use of the messaging system.

Of the 80 hospitalists included in the analysis, 61% were men, 53% were white, and 37% were Asian. Of the 41 with available age data, 32% were ages 25-34, and 46% were 35-44.

Of note, just 7% of the 1,319 sample messaging threads contained at least one emoji or emoticon.

The researchers defined emojis as 12×12 pixel images of anything from a smiley face to a fruit, and emoticons as representations of faces made using text characters from a traditional keyboard, such as a :).

The most commonly used emojis included the thumbs-up (39%), the smiley face (9%), the tears of joy face (6%), and the heart (5%).

While the findings highlighted unique insights into emoji and emoticon use, Halverson and colleagues acknowledged the limited scope of the data, which was collected at a single academic medical center. They also noted that clinicians in other healthcare settings could have different norms and practices around the use of emojis and emoticons for clinical messaging.

The authors suggested that further research should be done to understand clinicians' perception of ideograms to help determine best practices for their use in medicine.

Michael DePeau-Wilson is a reporter on MedPage Today's enterprise & investigative team. He covers psychiatry, long covid, and infectious diseases, among other relevant U.S. Clinical news. Follow

Disclosures

This work was supported by a cross-center pilot grant supporting health services research at the Regenstrief Institute.

Halverson reported no conflicts of interest. A co-author reported relationships with Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, Apple, Centene, DXC Technology, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, International Business Machines, Kyndryl, Micro Focus International, Microsoft, Oracle, PerkinElmer, Qualcomm, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Zimmer Biomet Holdings, Intel, Cellcom Israel, Exact Sciences, iRhythm Technologies, Senseonics, Teladoc Health, and Varex Imaging.

He reported employment at Mass General Physician Organization and Mass General Institute of Health Professions; research funding from Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts; consulting fees from Maze Eng, ConductScience, Bayesian Science, and Sci Sprout; and volunteer work at Emojination and Health Tech Without Borders.

Primary Source

JAMA Network Open

Source Reference: Halverson CMS, et al "Content analysis of emoji and emoticon use in clinical texting systems" JAMA Netw Open 2023; DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.18140.

Secondary Source

JAMA Network Open

Source Reference: He S, et al "Interpreting emoji -- a language for enhancing communication in health care" JAMA Netw Open 2023; DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.18073.

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Conductive Thread

Plenty of people just plain dislike wearing jewelry, even (or especially) smart watches. Nevertheless, they'd like to have biofeedback like everybody else. Well, we watch-less ones have something to look forward to, because a group of graduate students at Rice University have created extremely strong conductive thread woven from carbon nanotubes, which can be sewn into standard athletic clothing and used as electrodes, antennas, or simply as ballistic protection.

At 22 microns wide, the original carbon nanotubes were too skinny to use as thread. Instead, the team braided together three bundles of seven 'tubes each using the type of machine that model boat builders use to make tiny rigging. Then they zig-zag stitched the threads into a shirt, which gives the stitches added flexibility. This thread maybe as strong and conductive as metal, but the fibers are soft and flexible, and most importantly, machine-washable. Between its strength and conductivity, this thread could have a long list of applications from military down to civilian. Check out the introduction in the video after the break.

For now, the shirt has to be pretty snug, but future garments could easily have higher concentrations of nano-threads in order to get a better signal. Good thing, because we're still carrying around our COVID nineteen — aka the weight we've gained since the longest March of anyone's life, and never liked tight shirts anyway.

What else can carbon nanotubes do? Plenty, like keep 3D prints from delaminating.

Continue reading "Sew-able Carbon Nanotube Thread Could Spin A Lot Of Awesome" →

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