Unified Platform Benefits Clinical Trial Professionals

In our previous posts, we talked about the role of a unified platform in providing better patient outcomes and the benefits to an investigator site. This type of software allows your organization to access all of its data in one place. Your users can also quickly sort through their data, identify patterns, and flag areas of concern.

Today, there's an abundance of data available in clinical trials, but using this data effectively can be a challenge. A unified platform can help your organization ingest data, interpret it, and improve decision making. Efficient data management helps cut research costs and allows researchers to make better use of their time.

Today's Challenges

Researchers are often required to work with a wide range of systems. But keeping data organized in multiple systems is a headache. During the clinical trial process, researchers need software tools that allow them to access all available data quickly. They also need tools that minimize repetitive or manual tasks, freeing up time for more valuable activities.

When it comes to medical research, time is money. The more time researchers spend digging through multiple databases or manually reviewing data, the less time they have for patients. Investing in a system that integrates and consolidates data lets researchers use their time more productively.

With a unified platform, researchers' expertise can now be leveraged for high-priority activities. Your most talented employees can focus on making decisions, answering high-stakes questions, and improving operations.

Maintaining Efficiency in Research

The right technology platform can accelerate research speeds, making new trials easier to launch. Your new platform can even power artificial intelligence-driven analyses. These services can lead to significant breakthroughs.

Inefficient software, on the other hand, often creates roadblocks for researchers, resulting in:

• Difficulty recruiting new patients
• Problems recording patient data
• Funding shortages and ballooning costs

If your research initiatives are lagging behind schedule, switching to a unified platform may solve the problem.

How Unified Platforms Handle Data

One of the most common research pitfalls is inaccurate data. When you're juggling multiple software systems and spreadsheets, it's easy for data to become corrupted. But unified systems keep data in one location.

In software terms, data on a unified platform is a single source of truth (SSOT). If you have an SSOT, then editing or modifying data in one location changes it everywhere. If one researcher updates his or her data, all other users can view the updates. There's no need for manual updates across multiple data streams. Your users can trust that data is always accurate and up to date.

Understanding Data Collection and Reporting

To better understand what's happening inside your data software system, let's go over some key terms:

• Data ingestion occurs when a clinical researcher or medical practitioner captures data. At this stage, accuracy is especially essential. Correctly logging data helps prevent problems further down the line.
• Data reporting allows your team members to process and analyze the data. After this process is complete, data can be shared easily with all team members.
• Data extraction transforms data into a universally accessible format. This process speeds up collaboration and helps you meet deadlines.

Choosing the right platform ensures your data is correctly processed and safely stored. Unified platforms also log your data in a search-enabled database. Your research team can then use your centralized database to identify patterns and make predictions.

The Data You Need, When You Need It

In outdated systems, locating data can be a challenge. If your researchers are looking for information from a particular trial, they may need to dig through a lot of files. As a result, many outdated systems create a catch-22: users can't find critical data unless they already know where it is.

In contrast, a highly connected unified platform exposes the data you need, when and where you need it. You can easily search through the database to find what you need, even if you aren't sure when or how the data was collected.

Unified platforms may also incorporate artificial intelligence or machine learning tools. These tools do the grunt work of analyzing data points, freeing up your employees for different tasks. They also improve operations by ensuring researchers can work collaboratively with the correct data.

Managing Roles and Permissions

Whether you're heading a large company or a small team of researchers, you're bound to have a variety of team members. Each team member needs access to data that allows them to do their job. But as a supervisor, you don't want team members viewing data they aren't authorized to see.

Unified platforms streamline this process. As team members are promoted or change departments, their supervisors can quickly adjust their access levels. The right platform allows you to change permissions in just one database with the click of a mouse.

Medidata Rave Clinical Cloud™

Ready to explore a unified platform? The Medidata Rave Clinical Cloud™ is a cutting-edge platform that transforms the clinical trial experience for patients, sponsors, CROs, and research sites. Designed as a unified data platform, the Rave Clinical Cloud allows users to enter data once and populate it throughout the end-to-end suite of Rave applications. With this platform, you can optimize operational execution, decrease the data entry and maintenance burden, and reduce the number of clinical systems across your study teams. Learn more about Rave Clinical Cloud.