ICON

ICON Enhances Clinical Trial Efficiency With MSB Docs

Reduces The Likelihood Of Errors and Inaccuracies by 89%

ICON’s experience with MSB Docs has been highly positive. Their new-age CRA Scan App, which converts the users’ mobile devices into customized, portable scanners, has completely transformed the clinical trial processes at ICON. The application is simple, user-friendly and can be easily installed from MSB’s enterprise-level portals. We have achieved enormous time savings, as the processing time for each document has been brought down from 13 minutes earlier to 3 minutes now. Encryption of data has ensured the highest level of security, and the fact that the data stays on the device only for the required time or if the device is offline is an added bonus. Clearly, MSB Docs has offered us greater ease and security, enabling us to efficiently manage our clinical trial operations.

Clinical Research Associate, ICON

Key takeaways

  • ICON’s Clinical Research Associates (CRAs) had to put a lot of manual effort to get clinical trial documents from the site to Trial Master Files.
  • With the paper-based traditional method, it usually took 13 minutes to prepare and send a single document.
  • MSB Docs came forward as a savior with its innovative CRA Application and the process that usually took 13 minutes now takes only 3 minutes to finish.
  • CRAs save a tremendous amount of time on-site, which is now being utilized for other tasks and operations.
Table Of Contents

The Company

Headquartered in Dublin (Ireland), ICON is a global provider of outsourced drug development and commercialisation services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical devices, and government/ public health organisations. The company specialises in the strategic development, management and analysis of programs that support clinical development, right from compound selection to Phase I-IV clinical studies. Globally known for its insight, innovation, and performance, ICON has been recognised as one of the world’s leading Contract Research Organisations (CROs) through several prestigious industry awards.

Introduction:

ICON is a global provider of outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device sectors, operating out of 40 offices throughout the world. Their team of professionals is dedicated to assisting in drug development.

In the interest of human welfare, ICON is a global brand known for its innovation, creativity, and performance. It has been acknowledged as one of the world’s leading Contract Research Organizations (CROs) through a slew of prestigious industry honors. They provide a wide range of services, including – Laboratory Services, Clinical Research, Early Phase, Commercialization, and Outcomes. All aspects of clinical research are covered, from recruiting and hiring to marketing and sales.

The Challenge:

ICON conducts a wide range of clinical trials on an ongoing basis. These clinical trials are usually lengthy and involve an enormous amount of paperwork. Traditionally, the entire process of conducting clinical trials used to be overly tedious and cumbersome, as the Clinical Research Associates (CRAs) at ICON used to manually perform the following tasks

  • Finding and collecting clinical trial materials/ information from the site
  • Categorizing the collated information
  • Arranging the information in the right order and sequence
  • Delivering trial master files for further inquiry

The manual way of performing these tasks was driving down the productivity and efficiency levels of the company. Over the period of time, ICON had begun to face the following challenges

  • Time Drain Using the traditional paper-based processes, a CRO had to spend 13 minutes on an average to prepare and submit/ send a single document. Considering the high volume of documents involved, the company was spending excessive time in creating, completing and compiling all information.
  • Rise In Complexity The manual way of extracting clinical trial records from the site and arranging them into the trial master files was highly complex and cumbersome.
  • High Costs ICON was incurring excessive, unnecessary expenditure on paper, printers, scanners etc, which the company wanted to do away with.
  • Security Issues Maintaining security of clinical trial documents was a key concern for ICON, as all information was extremely critical, sensitive and confidential.
  • High Chances of Errors The chances of errors and mistakes was quite high, as the CROs used to prepare all documents manually. These errors in clinical trial files could cause severe damage to the company’s outcomes, and in turn, their reputation.

As a leader and innovator, ICON was on the look-out for a smart, intelligent solution that could automate all these routine, cumbersome processes, and thus enhance efficiency.

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The One-Stop Solution Implemented by MSB Docs:

MSB Docs, with its proven track-record and expertise, was chosen by ICON to streamline its clinical trial operations. The leading eSignature solutions provider implemented its ingenious, one-stop CRA Scan application, which facilitates the seamless and convenient extraction of clinical trial records from the site. The details of the new solution and how it was implemented are given below

How CRA App Becomes a One-Stop Solution?

MSB Docs comes up as a rescue with its ingenious CRA scan app to make the process easier. ICON’s CRAs can easily and quickly extract clinical document files from the site and send them off for further processing.

How CRA App Becomes a One-Stop Solution?

MSB Docs’ CRA scan app turns a mobile device into a portable scanner that is fully designed for ICON. The software application must be downloaded from MSB Docs’ security enterprise-level portals by the CRAs. They are now ready to use it by following these five simple steps:

  • CRAs at ICON can simply download the advanced software application from MSB Docs’ security enterprise-level portals. The app turns the user’s mobile device into a portable scanner that can fully perform all documentation.
  • CRAs can now easily and speedily extract clinical document files and clinical trial records from the site and send them ahead for further processing.
  • Post data extraction, CRAs can also easily compile trial master files for subsequent investigations.
  • The documents can be delivered to the operations group’s team. They are then picked up by a different section for automation and properly indexed to the document’s final operation.
  • User can continue to use the CRA Scan Application, even if the internet connection gets lost.

ICON Customer Base

ICON has over 82974 users and has submitted around 60000 documents to their trial master file via the CRA scan app. ICON has a total of 16987 custodians and a considerably larger user base

Results:

ICON has benefitted tremendously by using MSB’s innovative CRA Scan application. The company has been successful in submitting a large volume of documents to their trial master files with the help of the next-gen app. The key benefits reaped by ICON are as listed below

  • Time Savings The implementation of CRA Scan App has lowered the turnaround time for each document by 10 minutes. The process, which used to take 13 minutes earlier, now takes only 3 minutes to finish.  As a result, clinical trials at the company have now become fast and agile.
  • Simplification of processes The use of CRA Scan application has reduced the workflow complexity by 80%, besides facilitating a 10x more seamless flow of processes.
  • Elimination of Errors The use of CRA scan App has made the processes at ICON error-proof. The likelihood of errors and inaccuracies in the clinical trial processes has been successfully brought down by 89%
  • Enhanced Security All data is now encrypted, which makes it completely inaccessible to outside users. This has eliminated the chances of data tampering, theft and fraud. The company has witnessed 95% improvement in data security, which has further helped them in compliance.
  • Enhanced CRA productivity On-site, CRAs are able to save a significant amount of time, as they are no more required to work with the physical scanners or to find the correct repository for the documents. As a result, they are able to utilize this saved time in performing other valuable tasks and operations.
  • Customization of services Simple metadata setup options allow the team to service each customer individually, as per their specific requirements.
  • Cost-savings As the costs of paper, scanner, mailing supplies, etc got eliminated, ICON has now been able to save tremendously.

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