When demand for new treatments increases, such as the immediate need for a vaccine for a novel coronavirus, it can pressure clinical trials to deliver fast, accurate, and positive results. These pressures have the potential to increase the risk of errors, mistakes, or the mismanagement of data – which is why we have clinical trial oversight committees. They ensure the accuracy and integrity of the study. However, as clinical trials become more complicated, these teams must utilize more intelligent software that empowers them with the tools they need to meet their obligations.
This article breaks down the four driving forces for why clinical trial oversight committees need smarter software to complete their mission effectively.
4 Forces Driving the Need for More Powerful Clinical Trial Oversight Software
Clinical trials are incredibly complex endeavors that require the management of many different variables, including dosages, outcomes, and the health of possibly hundreds of participants, among others. Without the right tools, it can be overwhelming for an oversight team to meet its obligations to all of its stakeholders, including trial participants.
Driving Force 1: The Need to Maintain Participant Safety
A critical part of any clinical trial is maintaining the safety of its participants. A study that fails to accomplish this most fundamental pillar of clinical trials will lose integrity and respect amongst the medical community. Even worse, it can lead to the injury and even death of its participants.
While the researchers are doing everything they can to ensure participant safety, the oversight committee provides a critical, independent role, keeping track of study outcomes consistent with the protocols devised at the offset of the study.
Smart Software like Cloud Concinnity allows researchers and committee members to track the progress in real-time, from any location - ensuring that participant safety is maintained throughout the study.
Driving Force 2: Managing Multiple Data Sets
Clinical trials produce enormous amounts of data. From variations in patient health to dosages to dropout rates, it's a lot to keep track of. And that's why oversight teams need a system that can provide a single source of truth for this data.
Further, the right system can also help ensure that the data is only accessible to those with the appropriate permission to access the data.
Pro Tip: We built the Cloud Concinnity platform to empower researchers with a cloud-based system to collect all the data from the trial and store it in a central space. This is imperative for clinical trial oversight committees to quickly review this data and ensure that everything is being tracked properly.
Driving Force 3: Oversee Complicated Study Process and Protocols
At the beginning of a clinical trial, protocols and rules of conduct are established. It's imperative that these protocols and rules of conduct are followed consistently and throughout the course of the study to ensure the accuracy of the data and the results, as well as participant safety.
The clinical trial oversight committee is responsible for overseeing and ensuring that the researchers follow these protocols and rules of conduct throughout the course of the study. The best way to accomplish this is with software that allows its users to view real-time progress of the study and compliance with these protocols.
Driving Force 4: Ensure Accurate Recommendations
One of the most pivotal responsibilities of a clinical trial oversight committee is its role in recommending next steps, in real time, as the study progresses. The oversight committee is responsible for making recommendations about the study's continuation, modification, or termination.
And what factors go into these recommendations? Everything that we've described above:
The health of the participants
The integrity of the data
The adherence to the progress and conduct of the study
In this way, smart software like Cloud Concinnity is the most valuable tool that the clinical trial oversight committee has at its disposal since it ensures that the recommendations the committee makes are accurate and based on the most important factors of the study. Manual based processes can no longer keep up with the new pace of clinical trials.
Implementing Cloud Concinnity for Your Oversight Committee
Cloud Concinnity software is custom-built for clinical trial oversight, which makes it the best option for anyone trying to ensure the integrity of a study. For a free demo of Cloud Concinnity, please reach out to us. We are happy to answer any questions that you have, and we're here to help.