A clinical trial has many moving parts that have to be carefully controlled and measured. There are also many people involved, including participants, senior-level trial leaders, and a large team of people to handle the logistics. All of these elements must work together seamlessly and without error for a trial to be successful.
In the past, clinical trials involved a lot of manual work which required a large staff, vast amounts of time, and a high possibility for errors. But in the early 2000s, the development of clinical trial management software completely changed the game. With the help of this software, those clinical trials can be conducted more quickly, easily, and with significantly fewer errors.
Over the years, the software has gotten even more sophisticated. Today’s clinical trial management software offers one central solution that helps plan, run, manage, monitor, and evaluate studies from start to finish.
Here are a few ways software can support your clinical trials.
As humans, we’re prone to errors. This is especially true when dealing with large amounts of information. During documentation, it is easy to introduce an error simply by misspelling a name or transposing a number. One small error can ruin the validity of an entire experiment. By automating these processes, clinical trial software can significantly decrease the potential for error. As an added benefit, clinical trial software removes a lot of manual work, which frees a care team up to spend more time on essential tasks like monitoring patients.
Clinical trial management software also helps researchers take proactive steps to resolve issues. Instead of waiting for team members to do manual data cross-checks, the software can catch adverse events as they happen. This allows the team to quickly make any necessary adjustments to avoid a disruption. Clinical trial software can even allow users to build in customized escalation paths and automations to help ensure compliance.
All of these fail-safes improve the accuracy and timing of clinical trials and cut down on the stress involved in the process.
In any clinical trial, there are a lot of moving parts, so everyone must stay in the loop at all times. Clinical trial software makes it much easier for everyone working on a trial to get the information they need when they need it. Care teams can quickly see when a log was last updated, what was changed, and who made the edit. This helps keep the entire team in sync and on schedule.
Software can also help researchers collect information. These platforms act as a centralized hub for multiple data sources such as devices, clinicians, and participants. Those conducting the study can create structured workflows that allow them to collect information and build reports on findings. At the end of the study, clinical trial software can help the team follow up and get feedback from the participants, which can be used to structure future trials.
Time is the most valuable resource we have. Unfortunately, there never seems to be enough of it. Using clinical trial software will allow clinicians and their care teams to reclaim some of their valuable time. Instead of wasting hours manually executing manual administrative tasks, clinical trial management software frees care teams up to spend more time with patients.
One of the benefits of using clinical trial software is saving time and effort on manual administrative tasks, therefore significantly increasing productivity. In addition, it can help staff collect data by sending questionnaires, assessments, and follow-up emails. It can automate check-in reminders and consent forms, automatically logging activity in the searchable record. Good clinical trial software will also cater to all participants’ communication preferences by offering different options, including text and email.
As valuable as clinical trials are, they are also notorious for being very slow and costly. Billions of dollars go into conducting clinical trials each year. In fact, a study published in the British Medical Journal in June of 2020 found that of the 225 individual clinical trials they reviewed, the median cost was $19 million. While this figure is staggering, clinical management software has worked to help cut these costs down by streamlining the process.
While every trial’s requirements are different, communication remains an essential component of each. Using clinical trial software helps streamline communications by automating participation confirmation and appointment reminders, sending questionnaires and consent forms, and logging activity and interactions.
Clinical trial management software reduces the time it takes to collect, analyze, and report on data. Additionally, having easy access to all data allows care teams to make more informed decisions. This helps to keep the clinical trial on schedule, which means patients stay on track and engaged. All of this leads to significant cost savings.
Participant experience is an important element of clinical trials. It’s important that those involved with running the trial protect the data and health of the participants while also respecting their time.
Those who volunteer for trials expect their information to be kept confidential. Clinical trial software can help safeguard participant information by following HIPAA and healthcare security guidelines.
Some trials can take a mental or physical toll on participants, so the easier the process is on them, the better. Clinical trial software can help by offering different communication channels, such as chat and video. The software makes it easy for participants to give status updates to care teams using their preferred communication method.
Clinical trial management software also helps respect the participants’ time by making the trial process easier and faster. A platform like Welkin can automate assessments and send reminders to trial participants to help them remember when to input their information. At the end of the trial, it helps care teams reach out to participants so the team can gather important information about participants’ experience and satisfaction.
Clinical trials have come a long way over the years, but they can still be costly and take a lot of time. Clinical trial software helps streamline the process by offering a solution that effectively manages studies from start to finish. Not only does it save time and frustration by keeping everyone on the same page, but it also improves the experience for everyone involved. It saves time and money while protecting patient data so care teams can focus on what really matters — patient care.
Welkin offers a clinical trial management platform that can streamline your clinical trials. Learn more about how Welkin’s solution can help you.
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