Cleveland Clinic's New Neurological Assessment Center to Transform Routine Data Capture into Clinical Research Goldmine
Key Insights
Cleveland Clinic's 1-million-square-foot Neurological Institute building, opening in early 2027, will feature a first-of-its-kind neurological assessment center for routine outpatient neuroperformance evaluation.
The center uses markerless motion capture, digital dexterity tests, cognitive assessments, and voice analysis to generate objective, quantitative data integrated directly into the electronic medical record.
Jay Alberts, PhD, emphasizes that standardized data capture will reduce noise in clinical trial outcome measurements, potentially revealing benefits of interventions previously obscured by subjective assessments.
When Cleveland Clinic's new 1-million-square-foot Neurological Institute building opens its doors in early 2027, it will house a neurological assessment center unlike any other in routine clinical practice — one designed not only to enhance individual patient care but to fundamentally reshape the landscape of neurological research.
The center, a centralized area where arriving outpatients will complete a series of neuroperformance modules before seeing their physician, represents what Jay Alberts, PhD, Vice Chair of Innovation in Cleveland Clinic's Neurological Institute, calls "a standardized approach to collection of data on neurological function." In a recent episode of Cleveland Clinic's Neuro Pathways podcast, Dr. Alberts detailed how this systematic data capture could address a persistent challenge in neurological clinical trials.
"From a research perspective, for conditions like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and other neurological diseases, we frequently use very subjective measures for clinical trials," Dr. Alberts explained. "There could be a host of interventions out there that might actually show benefit, but we've had such a noisy measurement environment from an outcome perspective that the signal gets swamped in the noise. That's where this standardized, data capture presents an opportunity to really improve our understanding of various interventions and to do better and more objective measurements for clinical trials."
A Suite of Objective Neuroperformance Measures
The neurological assessment center will deploy multiple technologies to capture quantitative data on key domains of neurological function. Gait will be measured as a patient walks 25 feet, turns, and walks back, with seven cameras recording movement for instantaneous computer analysis. Cognitive function and visuospatial processing will be assessed through a brief touchscreen test in which patients copy a complex figure. Manual dexterity will be evaluated using a digital version of the nine-hole peg test, and voice pattern analysis will capture short voice samples to identify potential early signals of movement disorders or other neurological conditions.
Crucially, all data will be immediately transferred to the patient's electronic medical record, available to the treating physician within minutes. Robert Bermel, MD, Director of Cleveland Clinic's Mellen Center for Multiple Sclerosis (search) Treatment and Research, described the paradigm shift this enables: "The idea is to turn the provider from a collector of information — using tools like a stethoscope or reflex hammer, where they have to deduce and figure everything out themselves — to an integrator of data and information so they can be a better decision-maker in collaboration with the patient."
Built for Clinical Integration, Not Just Research
A defining feature of the assessment center is that its technologies were developed largely in-house at Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Alberts noted that commercially available motion capture and hand function assessment tools were designed for research environments, where a single assessment can take 30 to 40 minutes with additional time for data analysis. "That just isn't going to work in clinical practice," he said.
The in-house development prioritized seamless integration into clinical workflow and, critically, into the electronic health record. "You have to be able to discuss these data with the patient to make sense of it and make use of it," Dr. Alberts emphasized. "To me, that's an exciting part of it, that we are using data now to bring the patient and the provider together on the same page."
Research Implications: From Falls Prevention to Predictive Analytics
The volume of standardized longitudinal data collected across thousands of patient visits is expected to unlock new research capabilities. Dr. Alberts pointed to initial research applications including falls prevention and identification of early disease markers. Over time, the accumulated data promises to enable predictive analytics and personalized medicine approaches, with the potential to extend expert-level neurological assessment beyond specialized centers.
The Neurological Institute building itself is conceived as "a partner in patient care," according to Dr. Bermel, designed with natural light, spaces for family members, and environments that actively contribute to the care process. The neurological assessment center embodies this philosophy — transforming the physical space of the clinic into an active participant in both care delivery and scientific discovery.