In the absence of a centralized database, Clinical Research team commonly uses spreadsheets to record and maintain their clinical operations activities.  They store, manage and process critical clinical trial data sets in multiple spreadsheets.  They manually collate data from multiple spreadsheets and report data in organized ways to the management and other key stakeholders.  Management relies on these reports to make informed decisions necessary for attaining the business goals.

While spreadsheets provide the clinical research team the flexibility in performing ad-hoc analysis and reporting of data sets, they are not the most reliable tool to manage critical clinical trial data.  The major drawbacks of relying too much on spreadsheet in managing clinical trials are:

• Using the wrong version: Spreadsheet is a great personal productivity tool. However, when multiple users are working on the same set of spreadsheets it is error prone and often result in conflicting modifications
• Manual collation from different sources: Data is scattered across multiple spreadsheets. Associating relationship with data stored in multiple spreadsheets is a manual and tedious task that can’t easily scale as your data grows
• Overwrite spreadsheet formula and data: In a multi-user environment with no centralized control, data integrity is often compromised and the team ends up reporting from inaccurate data sets
• Data Security: Spreadsheets are stored in individual user machines and hence securing data is almost impossible to achieve
• Web unfriendly: Spreadsheets are not web enabled making it difficult to collaborate when the team is distributed and not co-located

Octalsoft CTMS can help address these challenges by providing a centralized database that offers a ‘single source of truth’.  With Octalsoft CTMS you can do more with fewer people and less budget.  Octalsoft CTMS helps you:

• Gain more data visibility
• Integrate data silos
• Achieve cross-application integration, real-time ad-hoc reporting capability
• Increase productivity by eliminating duplication of efforts
• Ensure all obligations are satisfied in regards to data access for compliance
• Customize and integrate new application features as the market moves