Ochsner Health and Paradigm Health Expand Access to Clinical Trials Across the Gulf South

On August 12, 2026, Ochsner Health and Paradigm Health announced results of a system-wide partnership expanding access to clinical trials across the Gulf South. Paradigm AI-driven recruitment platform reviews and identifies potential trial patients across 47 Ochsner hospitals and 370 health centers, expanding patient access to trials by 41 percent. The LLM-based platform integrates with electronic health records to continuously evaluate records against eligibility criteria, yielding a 41 percent increase in screening capacity, a 3.6x increase in patients identified for future eligibility, and a 75 percent reduction in manual effort. Nneka Ifejika, chief scientific officer at Ochsner, said the partnership makes trial infrastructure more efficient, and Kent Thoelke, CEO of Paradigm Health, said embedding intelligent infrastructure into provider workflows scales trial access rapidly.