AUSTIN, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Elligo Health Research^®, the largest healthcare-enabling research organization, was named winner of the 2021 Site Tank Award at Society for Clinical Research Site’s (SCRS) recent 2021 Global Site Solutions Summit for their virtual AI-powered clinical trial engagement assistant, Root. SCRS’s Site Tank Award is modeled after the popular television program, “Shark Tank,” recognizing research sites that have developed technology solutions that enhance and improve clinical research operations and transform business models.

Elligo’s Executive Director of Digital Strategy Raj Sharma, MBA, CPA, represented and presented the 2021 winning Site Tank Award breakthrough technology — Root — at the summit event. Root is an AI-powered virtual assistant that was seamlessly integrated into Elligo’s direct-to-patient enrollment technologies in June. Root is like Amazon’s AI virtual assistant, Alexa, but was designed exclusively for clinical research to help increase access, awareness, engagement, and provide a personalized participant experience to clinical research through text messaging and voice conversations.

“Poor communication is one of the top patient complaints in healthcare,” said Sharma. “To be patient-centric, we must be site-centric. Sites invest enormous amounts of resources toward patient engagement but instead can utilize cutting-edge technology to reduce inefficient communication and administrative burden to manage participants at scale across multiple studies. We’re grateful to have this industry support as we’re working toward more personalized human-like conversations with millions of patients across the world — it is a testament to the value and impact of storytelling and need for more personalized patient experiences in clinical research.”

As part of the award, Site Tank finalists receive industry support to further develop ideas. Elligo’s virtual assistant is already successfully creating one-on-one meaningful clinical interactions with patients, but Sharma notes that Elligo will be continuing to develop the technology and adding additional communication functionality, including new channels to communicate with patients, more personalization in clinical communication, and more automated communications to help further engage the approximately 97% of patients who don’t participate in clinical research.

About Elligo Health Research^®

Elligo Health Research, a healthcare-enabling research organization powered by our novel IntElligo^® Research Stack technology, uses electronic health records and the trusted patient and physician relationship to ensure all patients have access to clinical research as a care option. We directly engage physicians and patients who otherwise would not participate in clinical research and accelerate the development of new pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device and diagnostic products. Learn more at https://www.elligohealthresearch.com.