CDISC Holds European Interchange in Copenhagen

Copenhagen, Denmark-May 16, 2008-The CDISC European Interchange in Copenhagen saw a surge of interest this year and with that a significant increase in numbers. Over 300 attendees enjoyed events across the week (April 21–25). Tim Jaeger, chairman of the European CDISC Coordinating Committee, welcomed the attendees at the opening session of the conference. “CDISC continues to demonstrate the strength of its standards through increasing attendance worldwide. Here in Europe we have been striving to develop an event that brings standards into a stylish environment, where attendees can share ideas and learn how to implement CDISC standards. This year our dramatic increase in numbers demonstrates how important CDISC is to medical research in the European Union and we are proud to be welcoming both our well established and new delegates to Copenhagen,” he stated.

Professor Sir John Bell, the regius professor of medicine at the University of Oxford was invited as keynote speaker. As a physician, he has been bridging the gap between the healthcare and medical research environments throughout his career and he was appointed chair of the Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) in 2007, by the UK Government. Sir John spoke passionately about how electronic health records would transform medical research, focusing on the improvements that can be made with a modern integrated IT system in place for healthcare. Sir John Bell commented, “There are tremendous benefits to be gained from increased integration of healthcare and medical research information. Using data standards, such as those being developed by CDISC, we expect to see more global improvements linking medical research and patient care, such as those we are demonstrating in the UK.”

The European Interchange, in line with the increased appeal, had further developed the programme for the event, offering new courses on the Clinical Data Acquisitions Standards Harmonization (CDASH) Project and the Biomedical Research Integration Domain Group (BRIDG) model alongside a full range of the well established courses. CDISC's commitment to developing the link between clinical research and healthcare was evident at the conference with sessions on ‘Protocol to CRF’ and eHealth & Clinical Research & Safety Monitoring’. These sessions were augmented by a new workshop presented by CDISC and Health Level Seven (HL7) in order to raise awareness of the collaborative activities between the two organisations. CDISC’s next Interchanges will be in Japan June 3–6 and the first CDISC Interchange in China will be held on October 17–18. The International Interchange will be October 27–31 in Arlington, VA.