Can Technology Foster Better Collaboration?

Clinical trial sponsors and CROs are recognizing real benefits from advanced clinical trial technologies. But if they’re still compiling excel spreadsheets to manage performance, they’re not only eating up valuable resources, they’re leaving cost savings, greater visibility and improved collaboration on the table, too.

This 3-part series explores how sponsors and CROs – together and separately – can leverage today’s clinical trial management solutions to create efficiencies, enable greater transparency and keep trials moving ahead.

Read Part 1 of the series, “The Quickest Way to save $1 Million”

Can Technology Foster Better Collaboration?

Clinical trials are reliant on the input and oversight of numerous parties, all working toward one common objective. But the processes, protocols, and tools driving studies can at times appear to be working against one another rather than as a unit. Surely better collaboration can be achieved, but how?

If you opened a grandfather clock to peer at its inner workings, you’d see that producing the time relies on precision and balance. Simple weighted pendulum technology keeps the clock’s mechanisms moving continuously in order to pinpoint the most accurate time.

Similarly, the right balance of process and technology keeps the many components of a clinical trial swinging forward in unison. Every gear of a clinical trial must work flawlessly together in order to focus on its most important deliverable: data.

Imagine a trial monitor producing a near real-time snapshot of at-risk investigator sites in an instant. Or a CRO producing a sponsor-ready report on study or program performance metrics at the snap of a finger. These capabilities and more are available today. The right technology solution shaves time off employee tasks and fosters a more synergistic and integrated work experience ― all of which elevate the quality of trial data and the efficiency of trial execution.

From establishing high-quality and timely analytics that inform decisions to automating cumbersome and error-prone manual tasks, the best technology solutions are intuitive and help a clinical trial run more smoothly. Today’s clinical trial management solutions should create efficiencies and transparency, rather than create administrative burden as is the case with their archaic CTMS predecessors. Automating the way trial performance is shared with sponsors could save 40 hours a month alone for CROs. Which amounts to real savings across all trials over a period of years.

Just as the various parts of a pendulum-powered clock are known for working in harmony to keep the most accurate time, all components of your clinical trials should be similarly aligned to deliver an accurate picture of trial performance that drives day-to-day operations and maintains clinical research momentum. Leveraging the right technology to support best practices ― along with onboarding forward-thinking people ― can go a long way toward achieving the right balance and establishing a collaborative environment.

Check back next week for Part 3, “One Way CROs Can Outshine Their Competition.”

By Brion Regan, Product Manager, ERT