Data Portfolio and strategic planning

“Data Discernment – A simplified approach to strategic study and portfolio planning.”

by Kelly Butler |
Aug 20, 2021 |

Now, with the rapid innovation in eClinical system technology, a Sponsor can more readily find a CTMS solution that supports exactly their business profile – enhancing strategic insights without unnecessarily encumbering the clinical operations process.

Most small-to-midsize clients focus on two key areas when using CTMS to enhance data accessibility

1. Enrollment Metrics
Key Areas of Concern – patient recruitment and screen failure rate, open to enrollment to first patient enrolled, patients enrolled and not completing all visits (breakdown analytics for interim visits, safety events, and/or protocol deviations), target enrollment, accrual timeline.

2. Site Performance
Key Areas of Concern – study start-up timelines/spend, protocol compliance and deviations, safety reporting, data entry timeliness and accuracy, clinical document quality.

These two areas provide the greatest/earliest indication of protocol success or on-going risk, as well as return on study investment. And, so the question becomes, should the Sponsor bring the necessary data points in-house using CTMS as a nexus for cross-functional collaboration? Great question.

Use skills, experience, and resources of your CRO to your greatest advantage!

Essentially, CROs have a deeper data lake and access to more robust, well-rounded data points. It’s a volume game, pure and simple. Unless your organization has very specific goals in mind, it likely isn’t worth the cost and resourcesto duplicate the data collection efforts, particularly if the CRO has been contracted to perform a majority of the study activities.
Another important consideration is application maintenance. When the CTMS application is cloud-based and subject to periodic release updates – like Veeva Vault Clinical – any integration must be tested and maintained to ensure integrity of both the connection and the data communicated thereby. This can be a big resourcing effort, considering the 3x Annual Veeva Vault Release schedule.

Get specific and targeted with meaningful KPIs

When Sponsor goals dictate that it is time to bring data in-house (worth the implementation and maintenance efforts), be highly targeted. Choose specific, meaningful Sponsor-priority KPIs to capture in the CTMS environment, then leverage Vault application features to boost efficency in on-going management activities. Resist the urge to capture data simply because there is a visible field available or an out-of-the-box report associated with it; if you don’t need it, hide it.

Recap

In this blog series, we discussed the importance of a simplified eClinical system environment, then juxtaposed compliance „have-to-dos“ with strategic „want-to-dos“ using a simple framework, and voila – a hybrid governance:maturity map. Using this map, you’re ready to drive innovation both internally and within the industry. And, if you need some extra help, just ask – fme is here to support you!

Contact

I’m here to help

Contact us to get more details on any of fme’s services. We’d love to discuss your current challenges, and how fme can help you get the highest ROI and lowest TCO for your technology solutions. Call or use my contact form with your question, and get you connected with the right fme expert.

fme is always looking for top talent to join our team. If you are looking to join the team you’ll love to work with, review our job listings and review the details of current openings. Contact me if you have any questions on the application process.

Tracey King
Technology Success Manager