Digital 'breakthrough' for clinical trial management

This is Hyland’s first customer innovation partnership outside the U.S, and the first of its kind for The Royal Marsden. Together the two organisations have produced an affordable and effective solution suitable not just for The Royal Marsden but for any other NHS provider involved in clinical research.

Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which posed difficulties for researchers who needed to access trial information currently kept in hard copy, it will enable agile working, fit for the 21st century and allow pharmaceutical companies who need to check governance for the trials they sponsor to do so remotely. It will also free up physical space used to store huge volumes of paper copies.

In The Royal Marsden’s upcoming Oak Cancer Centre, a brand new treatment and research facility which will house over 400 researchers under the same roof as patients, having paperless trial management will enable the Trust to maximise space for research.

Jane Lawrence, Director of Research Operations at The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust said:

“What is so exciting about what we have produced with Hyland is that it is scalable; any NHS organisation with even small amounts of research can use this and where some pharma solutions would be cost-prohibitive, this is an affordable option whether a hospital runs many large multi-centre trials or participates in small tissue studies. As a specialist provider, The Royal Marsden has a responsibility to innovate and ensure that it can act as a test bed of best practice for the NHS. The Trust has a history of trialling new technology in clinic and we are proud that as a large research institution we can also innovate new technology for research data management that others in the NHS can take forward.”

Lisa Emery, Chief Information Officer at The Royal Marsden, said:

“We were already using Hyland’s OnBase enterprise information platform for patient record management, as are many other NHS and private hospitals and clinics, but until now all trial governance still had to be in hard copy and stored in a records office. Our researchers worked closely with Hyland’s developers to build on what we already had in place with OnBase and produce a paperless solution fit for researchers and pharmaceutical organisations”

Having invested resources into creating the Hyland Clinical Trials Management solution, The Royal Marsden will receive commission on certain onward sales, with the proceeds being re-invested into clinical trial administration and legal costs.

Ed McQuiston, Hyland Executive Vice President and Chief Commercial Officer, said:

“We are thrilled to extend our partnership with The Royal Marsden providing an agile and scalable digital data management solution to help manage clinical trial information access and governance remotely. We know the top priority for healthcare providers is, and always will be, their patients – and our focus remains supporting their mission to improve patient experience with innovative technology. The Hyland Clinical Trials Management solution will help NHS trusts evolve their clinical data management processes to ensure continuity for healthcare research providers.”