Well it is safe to say that the last few months have been somewhat eventful to say the least. The GDPR D-day has been and gone along with so much work happening across the NHS and academia to prepare for. It certainly feels like everyone has a better understanding of their data now and are more conscious about how it’s justified, where it’s stored, how long for, who the data controller is, alongside all the other stipulations and requirements of the regulations.
Clinical research data capture has for a long time been highly regulated and controlled due to the many other directives and frameworks under which we operate meaning that we should all have been in a fairly strong position to steer ourselves to GDPR compliance. As one University said to me ‘it’s not clinical research we are worried about so much, it’s research across other faculties’. This is where we come to realise that outside the sphere of clinical research, not all protocols include the basics such as a data management plan.
In line with our dedication to high quality research management, every member of the EDGE team from developers to account managers, Head of Operations to our directors PA have completed their GCP training alongside mandatory GDPR training.
We are starting to develop the next stage of the EDGE – CPMS interface called ‘SetStudySites’. This will transfer project sites from EDGE in order to create those site records on CPMS, therefore reducing the need to enter the same site data on 2 separate systems. This will lead us gradually towards our shared vision of a truly integrated research system.