The Future of Visual Study Archives
By Tommy Jackson on January 31, 2018
Your EDC study has come to a close. All data has been finalized and the database has been locked, and now –it’s time to generate your study archive. How do you make sense of all that data visually? The last thing you or your data reviewers want to do is struggle to make sense of overwhelming data delivered in an endless and flat-lined, row-by-row spreadsheet.
In Today’s results-driven landscape, data aesthetics can often play a back-seat role. Large XML files storing computer-strung data points are comprehensive but not entirely human intuitive. Data reviewers can easily overlook relevant data while struggling to understand the visual context in which that data was entered. Flat XML files provide the full data in a raw form, but the visual picture of the study’s conductive methods is incomplete without…. well, visuals of the CRFs. What are the current solutions around this data presentation problem?
In recent years, visual PDF copies of case report forms have been the answer, but with PDFs there is still the problem of how to manage and bookmark every single screen of the study that was once viewed online, in a web-based EDC system. The PDFs are stagnant screenshots and require scrolling through a library of them, in a tiresome fashion. The ability to scroll through and navigate among every single PDF, paralleling the method in which the data was entered is just not feasible.
Prelude Dynamics has a better solution: an offline HTML archive. Dynamic and intuitive in structure it is easy to generate, access, and use. an HTML archive means no longer becoming entangled in a web of spreadsheet columns, unmanageable libraries of PDFs, and no more costly server fees to perpetually host the study for intermittent visual access. The HTML archive displays the entire study and its layout for you with a visual presentation of all data and function captured in one place.
The beauty of an offline HTML archive lies in its dynamic use and its cost reduction; all the appropriate links, highlights and audit trail per form are preserved and navigable exactly as they were presented within the EDC upon collection, but without the cost and security concerns of keeping a server running indefinitely. An offline HTML archive captures all the same data and their hierarchies in a read-only format just as it appeared within the EDC. This makes it infinitely easier for the auditor or data reviewer to navigate and visually scrutinize data results in question. Who entered what where and why are frequent data review questions easily answered with a visual archive.
With Prelude Dynamics’ solutions, clients can receive the offline HTML archive in addition to a fully provided XML database (a SAS-approved import format and a native format.) The HTML archive really shines in providing a visual glimpse of studies past in read-only fashion, without altering the data format and results which were initially entered. HTML pages remain locked so they are not editable or alterable when viewing through any browser.
As clients grow the scope of their studies to get the most out of EDC, Prelude Dynamics provides greater solutions for data organization and presentation, in line with the expanding data submission requirements from regulatory agencies world-wide. Regulatory groups are putting increasing emphasis on the review process, and we believe that an offline HTML archive solution will surpass the PDF standard in greater visual accuracy, navigation, and preservation of data.
The future of visual study archives is offline HTML, an emerging standard that makes archives, data review and submission simpler and more fluid for all stakeholders and sponsors, and effectively expedites and refines the review of clinically studied products and their efficacy. HTML archive is an archive solution worth the investment.
