Current situation has led the world to remain secluded and engage more into remote activities. In such situations, like most other industries, healthcare industry too has been forced to think out of the box. Areas that have been mostly impacted are those where congregation and engagement of multiple people was necessary. One such section in healthcare is that of clinical trials. Data sharing, analysis and accumulation remains to be a major and most significant part while conducting a clinical trial. Now it is for us to find out how technology is driving the change.</p.

Remote Monitoring

To conduct the ongoing clinical trials remotely, monitoring and management of data and document is necessary. There is no fixed method that can be implemented and hence files are generally shared in the form of email, fax or such other cloud-based tools. This leads to compliance risk issues if not kept under proper surveillance. Such file sharing systems are generally used as they are low in cost but they fail to be compliant with the authority regulations. Moreover, fax and mailing services require huge manual work and provide greater scope of error in updating the retrieved data. In areas of clinical trial such minute errors too can have severe impacts.

Technology Driven Automation

Automation is of great help in current situation as it allows collaboration and a seamless exchange and upgradation of data. Access to Electronic Medical Record (EMR) tends to be of great help in addition to SaaS based tools. These being cloud based, perform the tasks automatically and hence there is less of manual task and lesser scope for errors. This advanced technology comes with a central repository for the storage of bulk data which gets analysed regularly and in real time, thereby easing out much of the task.

Technological transformations especially in the field of clinical trials have already started. Automation has provided greater control, access to vast data, accountability, lesser compliance risks and scope for continuous communication. This allows in performing remote clinical trials with added visibility and helps more people to come forward and adopt the change.