IKNL went from fragmented data to better overview

How do you keep track when research teams are scattered, patients are treated at multiple hospitals and your Clinical Trial Management System can’t keep up? IKNL saw their Excel lists of studies piling up. Since switching to ResearchManager, all the information is in one place.

IKNL (Integral Cancer Center Netherlands) is an independent knowledge institute for oncological and palliative care. Partly op based on data in the Dutch Cancer Registry (NKR), IKNL supports clinical trials in all Dutch hospitals that contribute to better diagnoses, treatments and care for cancer patients.

Limited review of studies

To share reliable and independent cancer insights, IKNL processes large amounts of data. But with their previous system Trias, it became increasingly complicated to have all the information available in one place. Karin Hummel, manager of registration at IKNL: “The Trias landscape, the study landscapes, the IKNL landscape, Trias couldn’t keep up with us. That system was mainly focused on patient management. If you wanted to know if a site was open, you couldn’t find that in Trias. Then people started emailing each other.”

Separate Excel lists

No things went wrong, but the situation created extra work. “We were keeping loose Excel lists. As a result, the system was no longer our single source of truth. Knowing for sure what the state of affairs was required multiple overviews. And then you still weren’t sure if you had the same information as your colleague. Now we just see everything in ResearchManager,” says Karin.

Less irritation, better communication

In 2020, IKNL switched to the Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS) and ResearchManager’s Visit Planning Tool. The benefits of the new system are obvious. “What you agree on around a study you want to do well and for that you do need to have all your data in order. The system gives us insight into what needs to be done, who is involved and what the status is. Everything is interrelated, so it saves a lot of work and irritation if you know what is happening on all fronts. We are all talking about the same thing now, because we use the same source,” Karin said.

Complete management of the research process

“It depends on which part of the study you want to know something about, which part of the system you look into. Everything we have together now about a study is in the CTMS. Everyone can look there, our colleagues, the local data managers, the central data managers, the monitors. We use the Visit Planning Tool for patient-level information.”

The CTMS of ResearchManager includes all the features necessary to efficiently manage every aspect of the research process. From selecting locations and creating budgets to managing visits and creating reports. The Visit Planning Tool helps streamline patient visits by providing, based on a schedule of various conditions, scheduling margins, protocols and intervals, suggestions for optimal visit dates. This ensures efficient scheduling, according to pre-desired schedules.

Improving together step by step

IKNL is not yet working with all the features of the CTMS. They deliberately chose a step-by-step approach in using it. “I am convinced that we are still only using a small part of what is in ResearchManager. Gradually we are discovering and testing what we want. My colleagues have now mastered the basics and are ready for the next step. Our focus now is on improving management information and user-friendliness for data managers. Together with ResearchManager, we are increasingly tailoring the functionalities to our organization.”

Working smarter and smarter

Karin: “My colleagues are constantly looking critically at their processes: could overviews and planning be easier? Can the work be done even faster and smarter? It is also increasingly common for patients to be seen at several hospitals. How do we ensure that all of our colleagues can see what is happening, without closing a study? We are working on that kind of development now. We always manage to get things easier, clearer, more correct and more complete with each other. That makes working together on the trials fun.”

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