TrialDox Blog – Accelerating clinical trials…

We’ve been following the legislative process that culminated in the final healthcare bill, see our previous posts here and here.   It is, in truth, a complex piece of legislation.  This chart makes attempts to simply it for us:

A very interesting environmental scan from PSFK, which can be found at this link or viewed below:

A must read for anyone leading innovation in healthcare.

TrialDox supports teams who bring product and services innovations in the clinical trials industry.  The Trial by Fire Solutions team based in Oakland, CA, is one such team bringing an innovative product to the CTMS space: SimpleCTMS.  We recently interviewed Jon and Nancy at Trial by Fire Solutions about the trends in the CTMS market and where they see opportunities for improvements.  Please feel free to reach out to them – they’re an insightful and energetic team doing great work!

What is a CTMS?
A Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS), simply put, is a software application designed to help the study team and key stakeholders efficiently manage the planning, execution and tracking of clinical trials.  When designed well and used appropriately, the CTMS is a flexible and intuitive resource which complements and assists study management workflow, processes and tasks.  The CTMS also provides a collaborative workspace, where geographically dispersed teams have a common view into real-time, up-to-date information, and team members can edit data in a standardized format. CTMS functionality typically includes management of: dates/milestones, sites, subjects/enrollment, teams, monitoring and reporting.  Some systems might also include safety, supplies tracking, regulatory, payments, data management and performance analysis functionality.  CTMS is available in both Software as a Service and Enterprise models.  There are general-use CTMS products on the market, as well as in-house, proprietary systems.

What do you see as drivers of the challenges in the CTMS market?
The CTMS market has evolved over the past 10 years.  Clinical trials have become more complex, with the need to reach farther across the globe for eligible subjects.  Global preferred provider relationships are being replaced by niche vendors who specialize in the local landscape. Tracking tools are plentiful but are neither standardized, flexible, or designed to be integrated. R&D spending is heavily scrutinized and study delays result in products being shelved. Companies are realizing that EDC and CTMS solutions are not one-size-fits-all and often come with extensive resource commitments. Frequently, the pace is accelerating so quickly that project teams have not effectively outlined expectations for status reports and management updates. Having a cost-effective CTMS product readily available and quickly deployable to internal and external global teams can make all the difference in study success.

What benefits would a project team expect to enjoy with a well designed CTMS?
Well designed CTMS products put key information for your role at your fingertips. Expect the CTMS to be comprehensive, user friendly, easy to navigate, and customizable for each individual. When user groups are flexible for common team member roles, study processes become more efficient and team members become empowered. With a well designed CTMS, information is organized and displayed logically and team members are able to quickly identify trends and priorities without excessive data entry demands. By integrating critical information related to sites, subjects, teams and documents, team members can eliminate manual tracking tools that often become inconsistent or outdated. All projects teams can benefit from a CTMS that is uncomplicated in design, accessible by internal and external team members, and provides simple yet powerful outputs.

Implementing a CTMS can be expensive and complicated, do clinical research teams really need it?
With the financial challenges that most organizations face, we understand how much harder it is to complete projects on time and within budget using fewer resources. What could be more complicated than a merger, acquisition, or partnership and not knowing which trial management solution(s) will be deployed across the newly formed organization? Recognizing the indirect expenses related to resource turnovers when information flows only downward and not in a collaborative environment is a challenge. Despite the challenges of fewer resources, less funding and resource shifts, your primary goal of being first to market has not changed. With all this in mind, the current conditions are perfect to adopt a flexible and cost-effective CTMS product to keep your teams organized, informed and on track.  Utilizing a web-based CTMS such as SimpleCTMS, the implementation is quick and uncomplicated. Extensive IT resource commitments and process overhauls are not necessary. Although the benefits of a CTMS may not be obvious, you may find that your teams are able to better focus their time and efforts on the study details and thereby increase efficiency and teamwork while mitigating costly project overruns.

Doesn’t it take a lot of time to adopt a CTMS?
Adopting a CTMS product should not take a lot of time and resources or the utility of a CTMS quickly becomes lost. It is important to recognize that team members are hired based on their strengths and study needs, not to (re)design and implement tracking tools. With the SimpleCTMS SaaS model, adoption occurs in a straightforward and easy 3-step process.  In Step 1, the high-level requirements are quickly determined. With the involvement of the SimpleCTMS founders, this step ensures that the product meets your needs in a logical, timely and ensures an effective product is provided. Step 2 is to train a small group of users on the launched product. Step 3 is to train the extended team on the study-specific product. You are off and running!

Wouldn’t a CTMS just add more duplicate data entry?
Life sciences companies, CROs, and vendors may have their own standard CTMS products, metrics and training tools. Some of these products are linked with performance management and study tracking tools to facilitate ongoing upper management and resource reviews. A flexible, streamlined system such as SimpleCTMS does not result in excessive duplication. We collect basic information related to sites, teams, subjects and documents. If this information is already captured in your system, upload it into ours! If your preference is to first enter information into SimpleCTMS and export to your system, this can be done. The content of SimpleCTMS was designed to provide quick, integrated, high-level detail that study managers and team members require. If needed, you will find that SimpleCTMS also has the ability to capture the necessary detail. For example, individual regulatory documents can be tracked OR the status of the regulatory document package can be tracked for a higher level status view. With SimpleCTMS, our goal is to complement, not duplicate, the daily study management tasks to make the start-to-finish process more efficient and fiscally responsible for all.  It provides time management tools optimized specifically for CROs and study project managers.

Don’t teams need to integrate the CTMS with other eClinical systems to make it useful?
There are many CTMS and EDC choices available on the open market today. While choice is good, it can often lead to confusion when making a selection to fit your needs. Recognize integration can be expensive and timely; this is a common hidden cost associated with enterprise CTMS systems. For your circumstance, maybe the timing is not right, the resources are not possible, or the finances are tight.  As we’ve heard from many of you in the industry, extensive integration often results in delays, frustrations and significant expense. You need a simple solution for your challenges. Consider our integrated SimpleCTMS solution that provides relevant high level items that impact the whole study team. Initiate a simple solution now and integrate areas that make sense for you when you need them without the upfront expense. For example, why spend the time and expense to integrate lab databases; instead provide a mechanism for the team to see when lab transfer and related milestones are planned so they can support the activities effectively. Provide a mechanism to securely produce and post data listings and subject profiles for team member review in lieu of hours and days of printing, collating, distribution, and tracking.

If a research team is already enrolling for a study,  isn’t it too late for a CTMS?
Many of you think that you’re too far down the road with the current trackers and team structure to make a change. Consider that you could be trending issues at sites based on CRA feedback in real time to evaluate whether co-monitoring or additional training should be scheduled or internal audit teams deployed.  It’s never too late to better manage your resources.  Even rescue studies would find immediate benefits in using SimpleCTMS. For example, upload your investigator contact list, team list, and subject enrollment and work with SimpleCTMS team to create a few rules that work for you. For example, override historical target dates and set new, more relevant dates for the current project challenges. Track distribution of protocol amendments as they progress through agency and IRB/IEC review timelines. Identify sites that are not yet activated and set logical document requirement limits for site activation based on historical knowledge. Effectively manage CRA site visits, reports and data crunches to see which CRAs are overworked. Track SUSARs reports by the date of release and eliminate the need to manually manage email distribution lists based on current team members on your study. Ensure team members are trained accordingly and relevant training documentation is in place before data queries and team turn over occur. Track CRF collection efforts to complement the data entry timelines.  SimpleCTMS can do this for you. As we have seen from experience, it is never too late to be efficient and fully knowledgeable of all aspects of study management. Better managed studies result in faster time to regulatory submission and commercialization.

SimpleCTMS was home-grown by experienced Clinical Trial Managers to serve the evolving needs of global project teams, critical relationships with vendors, and collaborative cross-departmental efforts. Our product easy to set up, simple to maintain, and has a modern look and feel. We are here to encourage collaboration and efficiency.

Stop by SimpleCTMS for a quick demo! http://www.SimpleCTMS.com

About Trial By Fire Solutions

Trial By Fire Solutions is a bio-pharma focused, clinical software company featuring SimpleCTMS, a flexible, intuitive and powerful clinical trial management system (CTMS). With many years of experience on the front lines of clinical trial management, we have a passion for innovating eClinical technology to improve planning, execution and tracking of clinical trials.

AT Kearney has evaluated a basket of global markets for clinical trials according to the following criteria:

• Patient pool
• Cost efficacy
• Regulatory conditions
• Relevant expertise
• Infrastructure and environment

The result of their evaluation is an interesting chart, showing that China, India and Russia ranking highest on the list.  More interesting is that China is not ranked drastically lower than the United States (6.88 vs. 6.10).

For the full article, click here.

Useful behavioral data to know for clinical researchers with respect to which technologies Medicare Beneficiaries have within their homes.  The chart is from Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services:

Did you know that the proportion of females in the Medicare population grows with age?  Interesting chart from Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services:

Often misunderstood statistics is that less than 15% of healthcare funding in the US is spent on pharmaceuticals.  A compelling international comparison chart from the Commonwealth Fund:

Earnings and employment statistics of healthcare technicians and personnel from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The (anti-)definition of a simple healthcare system courtesy The New Republic:

Interesting chart from PhRMA data: