Summary
Background: Longitudinal biomedical research projects study patients or participants over a course
of time. No IT solution is known that can manage study participants, enhance quality
of data, support re-contacting of participants, plan study visits, and keep track
of informed consent procedures and recruitments that may be subject to change over
time.. In business settings management of personal is one of the major aspects of
customer relationship management systems (CRMS).
Objectives: To evaluate whether CRMS are suitable IT solutions for study participant management
in biomedical research.
Methods: Three boards of experts in the field of biomedical research were consulted to get
an insight into recent IT developments regarding study participant management systems
(SPMS). Subsequently, a requirements analysis was performed with stake-holders of
a major biomedical research project. The successive suitability evaluation was based
on the comparison of the identified requirements with the features of six CRMS.
Results: Independently of each other, the interviewed expert boards confirmed that there is
no generic IT solution for the management of participants. Sixty-four requirements
were identified and prioritized in a requirements analysis. The best CRMS was able
to fulfill forty-two of these requirements. The non-fulfilled requirements demand
an adaption of the CRMS, consuming time and resources, reducing the update compatibility,
the system’s suitability, and the security of the CRMS.
Conclusions: A specific solution for the SPMS is favored instead of a generic and commercially-oriented
CRMS. Therefore, the development of a small and specific SPMS solution was commenced
and is currently on the way to completion.
Keywords
Information systems - reminder systems - computer security - biomedical research -
software design
