Some of the hottest trends in clinical trials are the focus of our most read blogs in 2023, including:
- SMART on FHIR
- EHR eSource
- Patient Engagement and Digital Front Door
- Decentralized Clinical Trials
SMART on FHIR
If you’re a frequent OpenClinica blog reader, you’re well aware of our strong belief in the potential and promise of SMART on FHIR.
In short, SMART on Fast Healthcare Interoperability (FHIR) unlocks the power of real-world data (RWD). It improves the clinical workflow, enables clinical trials to integrate RWD in a non-disruptive way, and ultimately reduces burnout among clinical trial researchers.
This blog features questions reporters asked about SMART on FHIR at the DIA 2023 Global Annual Meeting and answers from our CEO, Cal Collins. In the blog, you’ll also find links to media interviews published in Applied Clinical Trials and Outsourcing-Pharma & BioPharma-Reporter.
EHR eSource
The most read blog about eSource was Nine Key Advantages of eSource in Clinical Trials. Among the advantages of eSource are Speed, Quality, Safety and Diversity.
Other popular eSource blogs are:
- 10 Reasons to Prioritize EHR eSource in 2024
- Clinical trial researchers are burned out too. EHR eSource alleviates burnout in clinical trial researchers.
Patient Engagement and Digital Front Door
Three statistics help to explain why the clinical trials industry is focused on patient engagement and the digital front door:
- On average, it takes 19 months to enroll patients in trials.
- Approximately 85 percent of trials don’t begin on time due to enrollment issues.
- 30 percent of patients drop out of clinical trials due to non-clinical issues.
That’s why these topics were among our most widely read blogs in 2023. If these topics are important to you too, I suggest reading:
- Patient-Centered Clinical Trials Improve Recruitment and Retention [add hyperlink when it posts to OpenClinica.com on 11/21]
- Patient Engagement: Opening the Digital Front Door to Clinical Trials
Decentralized Clinical Trials
One of my favorite blogs of the year is Chances are you’re already doing decentralized clinical trials. In it, OpenClinica COO Ben Baumann, describes the various clinical trial practices that full under the umbrella of decentralized clinical trials (DCT), such as:
- Consenting patients electronically, via their smartphone, PC, or other device(s),
- Sending healthcare professionals to meet patients at their home for services such as phlebotomy, sample collection, or treatment administration,
- Connecting to the patient’s EHR to auto-populate the trial database,
- Enabling patients to interface with clinicians via a televisit or video conference,
- Having patients complete assessments such as questionnaires and diaries electronically from home,
- Shipping investigational products directly to study participants, and
- Instrumenting participants with connected devices to measure their health digitally.
Popular DCT blogs include:
- Five Reasons eConsent in Clinical Trials Matters
- The anatomy of an electronic case report form (eCRF)
Interestingly, OpenClinica published this blog two years ago; nevertheless, it was one of the most read blogs in 2023.
Stay tuned for more discussion of decentralized clinical trials in 2024, especially the eBook we’re publishing in the first quarter of 2024.