Health Decisions offers Mi-Co's technology for clinical trial data collection
According to the partnering companies, compared to paper forms still used in 95% of clinical trials, the system is designed to reduce data entry time by 68%. The combined offering, known as SmartPaper, is designed to allow responses to be recorded simultaneously on paper and electronically.
"Despite recent efforts at electronic data collection (EDC) in the industry, an ongoing difficulty continues to be collecting data in a way that does not interfere with patient interviews," said Michael Rosenberg, President and CEO of Health Decisions. "Although technology is in the forefront of drug development, sometimes doctors prefer old fashioned things because it works better for them. Clinicians often find that EDC is impractical, often actually hindering their work because they are used to the ease of keeping notes on paper. The Mi-Co approach combines the ease of dealing with paper with the ability to immediately process and transmit data as they are collected from patients. The resulting hybrid system is considerably easier than either paper or electronic systems and has not been offered before in this industry."
"Inefficiency in new drug development is an ongoing weakness in the industry," Rosenberg said. "It now takes some $800 million and 12 years to get a new product to market. This largely reflects the degree of difficulty in the development process. The Mi-Co technology facilitates capturing clean data."
"Our research indicates that new tools, especially technology tools, may be misused because they are overly complex," said Jim Clary, President of Mi-Co. "Our product, which is basically a clipboard and a piece of paper, can be used easily by everyone in the drug development industry."