Does Your Clinical Trial Tech Stack Meet The Needs Of Today's Workforce?

Nobody wants to be slowed down due to incompatible technology and overcomplicated procedures. Nobody wants their study to be rejected due to low-quality data. Yet, sponsors and CROs are astonishingly clinging to technology unfit for current studies. Time after time, projects require intervention after employing outdated technology designed for archaic studies, unable to accommodate swiftly to modern research protocols - causing delays or settling with lower quality to save money.

With technology playing an increasingly prominent role in the clinical trial space, there is an incorrect assumption you need complex solutions to manage complexity. While these may be advantageous at times or in theory, overly complex systems often add unnecessary layers of complication that result in inefficiencies and timeline delays.

Today, most systems are not true platform technologies but rather siloed systems that have likely been cobbled together, creating a paradigm where trial-side users are forced to perform data entry across multiple different systems. This can introduce new complexity into a study rather than alleviating it. If 5 different people are needed to demo a product, you can assume you’ll need as many, if not more, people to helm those disparate technologies.

Clinical trial teams are researchers and medical professionals, not computer scientists. Every additional technology they’re forced to interact with and learn can potentially interfere with patient care. Likewise, asking trial teams to learn multiple new systems at once – particularly if they haven’t been optimized for user experience – can drive burnout and lead to failed or incomplete technology adoption.