By Allison Proffitt 

March 26, 2013 | When clinical trial sponsors reach out to sites, they may use a newsletter or rely on word-of-mouth messages passed from the project team to regional managers to sites. The result is like the children’s game, Telephone. Everyone gets a slightly different version of old news.

PHT Corporation aims to fix that with an online social community to connect clinical trial sponsors with sites. Called MyStudyHome, the offering lets groups share up-to-date online training, events and study updates, and gives pharmaceutical sponsors and CROs a competitive edge in attracting high performing sites and improving site engagement and compliance.

“MyStudyHome is a new concept for study participants,” said Sheila Rocchio, VP of marketing and product management at PHT. “Sponsors are rapidly building therapeutic portals for patients but there's been less of a focus on creating communities for those working on the study.”

MyStudyHome users are clinical project managers and study coordinators who need centralized, single sign-on access to their eClinical systems in addition to their news, training, and study-related content. Sponsors and CROs get real-time information and feedback throughout the study to track progress and keep sites engaged and compliant.

The offering is part of PHT’s StudyWorks portal, and connects to electronic clinical outcome assessment data collected via the LogPad, SitePad or NetPRO systems, linking all the necessary technologies together in one place and enabling sites to learn from one another.

Community Tour 

Landing Page

“MyStudyHome encourages engagement throughout the study with real-times news, event reminders, training and documentation as well as features to connect one-on-one with other participants," Rocchio says.

Using the same sign-on used for the PHT StudyWorks portal, sites enter through the landing page, which houses recent news and alerts. “It’s like where you go when you log onto LinkedIn,” says Karin Beckstrom, Sr. Product Manager. “That’s what you see first—what’s recent, do I have any alerts I need to be aware of.” Sponsors decide what goes on the home page. They can add polls or announcements and can track who has viewed and dismissed pop up messages.

From there, users can connect with other users in the study member list, ask questions or get clarifications on the discussion tab, or access documents from the study library.

Library

“The library is a holding place for the latest version of all the study documents, training guides, and forms that need to be completed,” Beckstrom explains. Users see the most recent version, but sponsors have access to a full content management system with versioning capabilities for all documents.

Users can also access a calendar of events, which provides a simple picture of the workflow, tasks and key deliverables needed throughout the study. Reminders including email and calendar alerts immediately push new information to the sites when they need it with consistent messaging including safety bulletins.

And finally, there’s a Google map. “The Google map is really just a fun thing,” Beckstrom says. “It lets sites see other sites—are any located near me? It increases social engagement and keeps sites connected to the study.”