New electronic and web-based applications, sites, and technologies
By Carolyn Gretton
Acurian Launches Clinical Trial Patient Education Technology
Trend: New technology platforms are focused on helping improve patient enrollment and engagement, overcome education barriers, and help maximize site performance.
Acurian’s educational platform is designed to assist clinical trial sites in helping patients better understand their participation in research studies and manage patient expectations. The platform consists of videos customized to each trial, including informed consent and patient engagement modules, which address topics such as the study visit schedule, importance of taking study medication, potentially difficult procedures, or even general disease education. All of the components can be shown at the physician’s office, viewed via an iPhone or iPad, and delivered to a patient via email. “A critical component of a successful clinical trial is engaged, educated patients," observes Roger Smith, Acurian’s senior VP of operations. “When patients clearly understand and comprehend what is expected of them, they are more likely to continue in the study and comply with requirements." In addition, data show that a patient’s lack of preparedness can also be time-consuming to trial site staff, as repetitive patient education takes up to 23% or more of a study coordinator’s time. Use of videos can help overcome literacy barriers; studies show that 70% of adults with long-term illnesses have literacy problems. The videos can even be customized for specific patient populations to include appropriate messaging based on different criteria, including culture, age, race, gender, and social issues. “Our customers continue to request simple technologies that remove site burdens while enhancing patient care," Mr. Smith says. “We have accomplished both with a platform that deploys quickly and provides consistent education across multisite or multinational studies." { For more information, visit acurian.com. CompleClinical Brings Order to Vast Array of Clinical-Trial Data CompleClinical, CompleWare’s next-generation clinical research information system, captures electronic patient reported outcomes (ePRO) data, electronic case report form (eCRF) data, and physiological data provided by electrocardiogram, radiological imaging, and laboratory tests. The application also provides extensive clinical trial management system functionality for the vast array of forms and information that must be managed in pharma studies. CompleClinical can collect data from anywhere and any number of sites, ranging from one to thousands of sites as well as thousands of patients globally. CompleWare President John Weiler, M.D., notes that CompleClinical’s sophisticated design and customization options are the result of five years of development. “The software includes core functionality to capture and manage a wide range of data, integrated with key administrative functions, including authorization and authentication; form generation; and user, site, subject, and protocol management," adds Roger Carney, CompleWare’s chief information officer and team leader for the CompleClinical project. Additional releases of CompleClinical will capture data from a number of other devices, allowing study sponsors considerable flexibility in selecting equipment to capture physiological data. The application is available for licensing or can be employed through a software as a service (SaaS) cloud computing model. { For more information, visit compleware.com. In other technology news… Archimedes’ recently launched Web interface, ARCHeS Innovator, is aimed at giving health experts direct access to many of the features of the Archimedes Model, a large-scale simulation model of health and healthcare. The ARCHeS interface enables researchers and decision makers to set up questions and submit them to the Archimedes Model, then analyze the results in the Archimedes Outcomes Analyzer. Users can set up questions by specifying particular populations, interventions, and outcomes in the same way that researchers set up clinical trials or demonstration programs. The ARCHeS Innovator also provides Web-based communication between the user and the Archimedes team, enabling delivery of results within one to two weeks. “ARCHeS Innovator makes our simulation model accessible to a broad group of healthcare experts and can be used to support a wide variety of decisions relating to such things as health economics and outcomes research; comparative effectiveness analyses; guidelines, quality and performance measurement; and clinical trial design," says Archimedes Founder David Eddy, M.D., Ph.D. { For more information, visit archimedes.com. E-UPGRADES AND ENHANCEMENTS The second-generation release of MI FOR IPAD, Cegedim Relationship Management’s life-sciences customer relationship management (CRM) solution, features improved usability and enhanced offline functionality for increased user a user. { For more information, visit cegedim.com/rm. EVALUATEPHARMA CLINICAL TRIALS is now available with more than 100,000 trials from ClinicalTrials.gov seamlessly integrated into the application to provide further insights and clarity into the latest trial data. The resource is updated daily, and EvaluatePharma offers daily, personalized email alerts that highlight any changes in the trials being tracked by the user. { For more information, visit evaluatepharma.com. Prolifiq, a provider of sales content management software for the life-sciences industry, has enhanced its MOBILITY SUITE to allow users to send and track their sales collateral on any tablet computer or smartphone. { For more information, visit prolifiq.net/lifesciences. StudyManager has released REVEAL 3.2 with enhanced features that provide greater ease of use and performance for research sites, academic medical centers, and hospitals. Some of the improvements featured in the latest version of Reveal include expanded fields and filters, a workflow-driven accrual activity wizard, and a new study search/select field that allows users to more quickly identify and select a study for patient enrollment. { For more information, visit clinicalsoftware.net. IREP 2, the latest version of Veeva Systems’ customer relationship management and closed loop marketing solution, maximizes the enhancements offered by Apple’s iPad 2 — such as live video chat, plug-and-play projection, and faster rendering of HTML 5 content — to deliver the speed that users expect of the latest-generation iPad device. { For more information, visit veevasystems.com.
