By Clinical Informatics News Staff  

November 18, 2016 | Medidata today announced the launch of the Medidata eConnect Partner Program. The collaborative initiative will enable the integration of healthcare data—from electronic health records (EHRs), electronic medical records (EMRs), and clinical trial electronic source data (eSource) systems—with the Medidata Clinical Cloud, the platform powering clinical trials for nearly 800 life sciences organizations worldwide.

“Pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies are increasingly looking for technologies to gather more and better patient data. However, a key concern is the increasing burden on investigative sites, currently tasked with using disparate systems for different clinical trials in addition to the systems needed to manage their medical practices and record data from patients who are not participating in research studies,” said Medidata’s president Glen de Vries in a written statement. “The rapidly expanding ecosystem of EMR, HER, and eSource technologies requires openness and interoperability, which our eConnect program provides by making it possible to integrate them all with the industry-leading electronic data capture capability on our platform. This will enable clinical trial sponsors to simplify day-to-day operations and workflows at investigative sites through a single system that’s already in place, eliminating the need for staff to repeatedly enter the same data in multiple systems and resolve transcription errors.”

According to a May 2016 CenterWatch report conducted in partnership with the Association of Clinical Research Professionals (ACRP), investigative sites typically use an average of 10 different systems to collect data for clinical trials. Study coordinators and investigators who were surveyed noted that using incompatible systems results in increased workloads for sites, greater operational inefficiencies and lower productivity.

A key example cited is the lack of integration between EHRs, EMRs, and other eSource systems—used by clinicians to record patient data—and EDC (electronic data capture) systems—administered by sponsors and contract research organizations (CROs). The phenomenon has perpetuated a cumbersome double-data entry practice commonly referred to as “swivel chair interoperability,” which creates significant delays in collecting and cleaning data.