Technology Overview

An Enterprise Scale Integrated Research Platform.

Organizations that manage clinical trials who are also adopting enterprise portal technologies should be aware that through a strategy of adding minor modifications to off-the-shelf portal software and application of available XML-based WYSIWYG form technologies, our group has modeled an inexpensive but powerful Web-enabled clinical trial management system that leverages current investments, scales to enterprise level, and is absorbent of future technologies. Industry can now fully integrate clinical trial management solutions within the same portal platform used for enterprise business processes.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recognized new portal technologies out-of-the-box provide 90 percent of the functional requirements necessary for Web-enabled clinical trials management and has designed a portal-based system capable of study management from inception to closure. Unbound by legacy, VA took advantage of breakthroughs in software development environments, XML, and Web Services to provide standardization, interoperability, and 21 CFR 11 technical compliance while extending an enterprise platform to manage clinical trials. Because of the inherent modularity of portal software, the system ramps up to serve other business process needs of the organization, providing a common gateway to the whole of the enterprise making integration and presentation of disparate data sources a snap. The unique architecture also provides a price point within range of budget-constrained researchers and research organizations. Use of these technologies within VA has has been favorable. This author expects the application of portal technologies to the clinical trials paradigm to become de rigueur.

Bio-IT world post in 2004. You heard it here, first. -dave