Tool provider bridges paper, electronic data

Dermatology-focused CRO Symbio has tapped e-clinical tools provider DATATRAK for an effort that combines paper-based and electronic trial data. Symbio will use DATATRAK eClinical's hybrid functionality--double data entry and EDC--in a Phase III rescue study for an unnamed client.

The CRO will enter paper-based study records via its eClinical data management component. Patient data from the rescue study, meanwhile, will be captured electronically via the EDC component. Data captured during the rescue study will then be added to the initial study data converted from paper to electronic form. The effort is intended to let researchers capitalize on data that might previously have been unusable.

"The eClinical component will let us provide real time data to the sponsor and streamline the data capture activities from the sites," says Betsey Zbyszynski, Symbio director for Client Services.

As reported earlier, some industry watchers expect more than half of this year's new trials to use electronic data capture technology.

- here's the announcement
- see our earlier EDC coverage