EDGE Canada

A visit to our Canadian Users

A visit to

our Canadian Users

Last month Jen Peach, Knowledge Team Manager, Ben Grace, Client Manager, and our Head of Operations and Delivery, Baljinder Gill took a trip over to Canada to visit some of our Canadian users. They visited EDGE Lead Admins from The 3CTN Coordinating Centre in Toronto and the Juravinski Cancer Centre in Hamilton. Ben and Bal also visited the Lead Admins from Alberta Innovates in Calgary.

Jen and Ben provided two full days of joint training sessions for the new Lead Admins and finance teams for University Health Network (UHN) and Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Jen, Ben, and Bal also visited both UHN and Sunnybrook locations in Toronto to discuss the use of EDGE within the organisations.

Ben and Bal visited the Tom Baker Cancer Centre in Calgary where they completed further training for end-users, Lead Admins, and the finance team.

Pictured: James Schoales, Portfolio Data Analyst - 3CTN, Baljinder Gill, Head of Operations and Delivery - CIRU, UoS, Stephen Sundquist, Executive Director - 3CTN, Rebecca Xu, Portfolio and Informatics Manager - 3CTN, Jen Peach, Knowledge Team Manager, and Ben Grace, Client Manager - CIRU, UoS 

EDGE 3 launched in Canada!

EDGE 3

launched in Canada!

We are very excited to share that EDGE 3 has been launched in Canada to Users at the Canadian Cancer Clinical Trials Network (3CTN), Alberta Innovates, and University of Saskatchewan. This follows successful rollouts which have taken place this year to South Africa, New Zealand, and the UK. We recently caught up with 3CTN’s Super User and Portfolio and Informatics Manager, Rebecca Xu, to see how things have gone for them since the launch of EDGE 3. We are delighted to share that Rebecca felt that the transition from EDGE version 2 to EDGE version 3 was overall a smooth process. She also noted that her Users adapted quickly to the change. Regarding 3CTN, Rebecca provided the following comments:

“The launch of EDGE 3 went smoothly. Leading up to the launch, our team communicated about the change, providing everyone with a heads-up and ensuring preparedness by updating our version 3 training documents. Lead Admin Users were given a preview of the changes. On launch day, September 20th, 2023, everyone transitioned to the new EDGE 3 successfully.”

During our interview, we also asked about any hurdles the sites had to overcome. The response was again very positive. Rebecca and her team confirmed that overall, it went well, but there were some minor issues that were sent to our development team to fix. However, these were addressed promptly by our team here and Rebecca informed us how both Nicky Morris, EDGE Product Manager, and Jen Peach, EDGE Knowledge Team Manager, were extremely accessible and responded very quickly to their queries.

“Some EDGE Users felt overwhelmed by the anticipated changes. To ease Users into the transition, 3CTN modified the V2 training manual to reflect the new changes with User Acceptance Test (UAT) platform screenshots, clearly indicating the key changes. The updated training manual was divided into 18 training modules for Users to engage in, either through self-learning or in virtual seminars hosted by the 3CTN team. These sessions focused on addressing key changes in navigation, reporting, and finance. Ten online training sessions were provided to approximately 90 Admin Users across 60 different Cancer Centres prior to the launch and continue post-launch. In addition, familiarization videos developed by the UK EDGE team were made available to all Users. As the time between version 3’s announcement and its launch were not long, we appreciate our Admin Users dedicating time to review upcoming changes over the summer and provide feedback.”

This naturally followed the question ‘How have your Users handled the change?’:

“Since the interface and layout of EDGE 3 are different from previous versions, Users took the time to familiarize themselves with the new layout. Most of our Users felt ready to try out the new features, and many are eager to explore the finance features further.”

To help other countries who are yet to receive EDGE 3, Rebecca also offered some valuable advice for other EDGE Regional Leads yet to experience the EDGE 3 rollout:

“I would suggest reviewing your existing EDGE V2 training materials and determining if you can follow along using the EDGE 3 User Acceptance Testing platform, then updating them with EDGE V3 screenshots. I would also suggest practicing all the tasks you normally do in EDGE, as this is the quickest way to notice changes right away and update training materials for Users.”

EDGE International

A year with

EDGE International

It has been an eventful 15 months for everyone to say the least. I could say more but it would only go to repeat what has been said already by so many. Although Covid has dominated every facet of our working lives, there are still many achievements we can talk about. I felt now would be a good time to write a post to share some of the stories from the last year of the EDGE International groups, a little bit of a ‘Christmas Round Robin’ if you will, but in June!

Our colleagues in Canada have been working with the C17 network, a collaborative group of paediatric haematology, oncology, and stem cell transplant program centres, to implement EDGE into their programme of work. Early to join have been the Hospital for Sick Kids in Toronto and Montreal Children’s Hospital and more recently Stollery Children Hospital and Alberta Children Hospital. This now brings the total number of Canadian Centres using EDGE to 34 which has come about through a lot of hard work and dedication from our partners out there. With the remote monitoring case study now available (see previous blog post) Canada is exploring how this can be used across the regional network groups.

In New Zealand, we have also welcomed the Starship Children’s Hospital in Auckland to the programme along with their colleagues in Blood and Cancer at ADHB and the University of Auckland. All are looking at how EDGE can break down siloed working and bring together common systems and standards across their region with other district health boards keeping a close eye on how EDGE will evolve across the region.

Our most recent newcomer to the group is the CTRU at K. J. Somaiya Hospital and Research centre in Mumbai, India who started their training in early May and are getting ready to run with EDGE. This is a really exciting new group for the EDGE team to be working with and the CTRU have some great plans ahead.

In combination with our exploratory projects and Pilots in South Africa, Brazil, Sri Lanka, and Australia we now have a whopping 3000 international research studies being run through EDGE which is phenomenal.

While the international groups joining EDGE continue to grow a big thanks should be extended from our Team at CIRU to yours! The generosity of our subscriber base in the UK and Canada to share their experience, hard work, learning, and achievements with our new international colleagues must not go unacknowledged. The willingness to collaborate and share to help those starting from scratch is what the EDGE programme is best known for. In the absence of a 2021 EDGE Conference and the ability to gather in person, our subscribers have embraced working together online. A community of like-minded friends looking to help one another achieve a common goal. Thank You.