Velos Introduces Velos Volunteer—Compliant, Ethical, and Efficient Subject Recruitment

Velos, Inc. will introduce its Velos Volunteer web application at the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA) 2012 Summit on Clinical Research Informatics in San Francisco, California on March 21 to 24. Velos Volunteer helps organizations enlist and manage future participants in clinical trials through a process-oriented, ethical, and compliant methodology.

"We are pleased to release Velos Volunteer to improve compliance and efficiency in the recruitment process for clinical trials and to support meaningful use of data from medical records," said John McIlwain, President of Velos.

Currently, most researchers, coordinators, and nurses maintain respondent contact information on paper, spreadsheets, and sundry databases. This inefficient process is often not fully compliant with existing rules and best practices for recruitment in clinical trials. For example, it is necessary to select volunteers fairly on a first-come, first-serve basis and eliminate bias. There is also an acute need for research sites to present recruitment capabilities and strategies to industry sponsors as well as evidence-based data measuring recruitment success and failure. Velos Volunteer provides metrics for enrollment and screening reporting to address these needs that are often otherwise not readily available. Ethical and compliant recruitment is also a great way to achieve meaningful use of medical records if supported by the proper systems.

"Velos Volunteer provides us with a sponsor-friendly recruitment dataset and uniform, audit-ready workflow throughout our entire recruiting process. We can load electronically large numbers of patients we identify as possible enrollment candidates from our clinical data repository and manage them through the same process," said Julie Eckstrand, Assistant Director–Clinical Support Services and Quality Management.

Velos Volunteer remedies these problems through a secure system that complies with institutional security, IRB and HIPAA requirements. The database and consent for storage of PHI is an IRB-approved protocol itself that is not limited to a specific study. System features include call tracking, script management, inclusion/exclusion criteria and response management, blacklisting, and messaging. The system also provides a platform to inform respondents of the risks and benefits on a one-on-one basis which facilitates adherence to good clinical practice. The system also incorporates workflow-based design to navigate based on the direction of conversation with respondents. In addition to addressing compliance and meaningful use needs, Velos Volunteer works the way recruiters work and reduces time spent performing redundant tasks.