Lifespan has launched a portal linked seamlessly from its website, developed to enable patients and families access to information on hundreds of its active and enrolling clinical trials.

Lifespan Research Administration has built a comprehensive clinical trial search engine, in partnership with vendor XpertDox, offering information and enrollment contacts for the health system's clinical research studies, including tests of new drugs, devices, and diagnostics for people with cancer, heart disease, diabetes, brain injury and more.

The search engine simplifies access for patients and providers who could benefit but may be unaware of trials, or unsure of how to access them. The new site gathers all active trials in one place, and is searchable by disease, condition or procedure. It also offers options to view all healthy volunteer trials. Information is provided in layman's terms, as well as in more technical terms for physician reference, with a simple toggle. Users can also change their view to Spanish with a click.

"We're proud to share this new platform, intended to make our cutting-edge research more accessible to those who need it most," said Lifespan President and CEO Timothy J. Babineau, M.D. "We're confident that it will make it easier for patients and providers to find the best trial options, and for our researchers to recruit study participants, harnessing the power of our impressive research enterprise on behalf of our community.

Lifespan VP of Research Administration Peggy McGill explained that the search engine derives study information from ClinicalTrials.gov, maintained by the National Library of Medicine at the National Institute of Health.

"Our goal," said McGill, "is to offer patients, families and physicians access to that information in a way that is matched to their needs, with studies close to home, and in language that is clear and accessible to patients and families who are often faced with a whole new vocabulary of clinical terminology after a diagnosis."

Users will find access to the new clinical trials search portal on Lifespan.org by clicking "Clinical Trials" in the top navigation. It will also be embedded into the informational pages of key clinical service areas offering current trials.