When technology serves humanity, it’s deemed vital. This concept should come as no surprise. However, many vendors and technology professionals in the healthcare field fail to recognize this truth. They have to understand that technology is a strong facilitator that has helped organizations achieve significant progress in healthcare. However, technology can also be a cause of concern if it’s not utilized properly.
One area of medical research that needs to take full advantage of technological improvements is clinical trials. Since clinical trials require a lot of testing, monitoring, screening, and treatment, they should rely on technology to streamline their processes. Therefore, an expert practice like this should be able to find trustworthy software that is flexible and easy to use.
That said, this article outlines seven key features to look for when choosing clinical trial software to provide a consistent experience for medical professionals, patients, and shareholders:
- Ad-hoc Reporting Tool
Clinical trial software should have an interface reporting application that allows the generation of custom-made reports across operational domains. For example, when research reports are created, generating findings should be easy and done immediately. Reports in the health care industry can originate from several studies or one research study; fortunately, clinical trial software has a simple interface that allows you to produce and save these reports.
Furthermore, you can conveniently integrate customized columns in your study evaluations. Clinical trial software may also manage and monitor high-priority tasks and deliverables, site activity results, key site paperwork, data recruitment, contracts, expenditures, and other pertinent information. Filtering and categorizing features that can be made accessible in a report are two helpful resources supported by clinical trial software.
- Contract And Payment System
With clinical trial software, you can produce several contracts for every study and facility and create different formats for a specific country or network. When it comes to contract generation, the following are included: legal tender, item prices, operating costs, money withheld under certain conditions, clarity concerning visitation status, information flow, and costs.
In addition, finance reviews produced through the clinical trial management system platform will allow you to create comprehensive statements, monitor payments, and control budgets. Furthermore, you can take advantage of system automation to invoice subjects, transfer data, and manage billing-related documents. What’s more, you can quickly export observations and contract specifics through it.
- Calendar and Monitoring
Efficient clinical trial software gives a calendar view of the electronic visit report (EVR) platform which shows a detailed outcome of survey-level tasks. Visits to the facilities, patient visits (both planned and actual), and overall company/employee activities such as holidays are all supported by the software. Additionally, you can easily generate a workflow-based monitoring report, verifications, and particular tracking requirements through integration with the site visit tracking feature.
Tracking activity items for facility visits and research team activities can be done using notifications, clinical trial management system assessments, and key performance indicators that are supported under the calendar and monitoring function. Export to Outlook can also be made through this software feature (for instance, iCalendar).
- Reporting And Business Analytics
Clinical trial software should have features that produce graphical summaries to visualize research activities such as site launch and registration processes. The graphical chart or dashboard should generate detailed research metrics such as goals, an exact number of nations, locations, surveys, and recruited individuals.
The primary advantage of using dashboards and graphs is that they can be replicated in other projects and studies. Additionally, users can cash in on in-app reports to handle crucial happenings, for instance, activity items, appointment reports, document expiry, and research deliverables.
- Project Planning – Study Milestones And Tasks
An integrated Gantt chart is your magic wand to track activities and deliverables or objectives effectively. This is one of the clinical trial software features that you should look for because a Gantt chart is a crucial project management tool that aids with the design and planning of projects, particularly for streamlining challenging assignments.
In the healthcare industry, it helps keep track of the objectives and exact planned and approved dates. Additionally, it provides or displays the project overall, a key indicator of project growth symbolized as a fill on the Gantt chart.
Another good feature that should be considered is the planning and milestones generator that can establish priorities, accountable parties, graphical inputs, and can import external information by adhering to the instructions in its comprehensive template. Some project characteristics comprise the first task description and delays between two activities that share a dependency. Note that you can use the defined deliverables or targets and activities or come up with your own. Copy your deliverables and activities between surveys and research to maintain uniformity throughout the project.
- Subject Tracking And Electronic Data Capture Integration
The clinical trial management software system functions as a detailed startup tracker that connects with your site’s activities. A location startup tracker monitors operations from site selection to registration. Additionally, clinical trial management software facilitates the incorporation of patient selection and registration data, calendar events, health assessment, factoring of ad hoc visits, and registered patient monitoring with transfer functionality.
If you wish to monitor patient visits or what caused failures at the screening stage, you can simply track such information with clinical trial management software. Another crucial element of clinical trial management software is the capacity to track views, which can be customized using columns. Furthermore, you may quickly and conveniently move data from external sources by utilizing a transfer template with guidelines. Notably, clinical trial management software may be used with external Electronic Data Capture (EDC) systems.
- Real-Time Research Analytics And Dashboards
As previously mentioned, dashboard graphics depict research performance such as startup location and registration procedure. Additionally, dashboards provide instant access to all clinical data without requiring users to switch between many applications. Simple study indicators are also available at a glance in clinical trial software. On the other hand, real-time research analytics allow for exact trial status reporting, which enhances the study’s overall quality.
Final Thoughts
There’s no such thing as a flawless software version. The good news is that technological experts will always be on hand to fix any issues that may develop or change how certain components work. Furthermore, a supplier’s willingness to incorporate ideas into future product upgrades may influence your contentment with the software. In a nutshell, software acquisition can easily break your bank, so approach it with an absolute understanding of how the product will benefit your clinical trials for years to come.
