Today’s world is awash in data. The availability of digitized data points offers unparalleled opportunities for researchers, but without data integration, it also poses challenges.
How can clinical trial teams make use of the vast quantities of public and private data currently available? Digital data integration tools collect data from multiple sources and display it in an accessible, usable format. Customized, seamless data integration leads to better insights and better results.
Why Your Team Needs Better Data Integration
Data integration pulls clinical research data from multiple sources and displays it in a single digital environment. To achieve this goal, data integration tools must be able to read or convert data from multiple sources.
When data is sourced, integrated, and displayed effectively:
- Your teams have better information and insight. Effective data integration collects data from many public domain sources and clinical trials.
- You get information from the source. With access to clinical trial sites and principal investigators, your teams can learn vicariously, gaining insight from other teams as they work on their particular research questions.
- You put technology to work. Linking and analysis algorithms promote better insights and connections between data — even when it comes from different data sets and sources.
- You stay ahead of the curve. A robust data integration platform that includes continuous updates ensures that your clinical research and MA teams never miss new information that is relevant to their work.
The ability to customize data integration tools helps clinical researchers and medical affairs teams further focus their work. One example is the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network (PanCAN), a data analysis platform focused specifically on pancreatic cancer information and research, as Kawther Abdilleh and fellow researchers discuss in a 2022 article in the journal Cancer Research.
Better data integration helps both clinical trial teams and medical affairs teams make informed decisions. Clinical trial design, trial feasibility, site selection, and KOL management become easier to execute and to explain when backed by high-quality integrated data.
Choosing the Right Tools for Seamless Data Integration
Data integration poses challenges. For instance, data manipulation can affect the quality of the original raw data or even introduce errors that affect the data set, writes Sheila Antonio at Precision for Medicine.
To minimize or eliminate these risks, choosing the right digital tools for data integration is a must. A web-based tool like Anju’s TA Scan helps clinical trial teams collect and analyze data from multiple sources.
Top-quality tools for seamless data integration share several key traits:
- Integration from multiple high-quality data sources. The best data-integration tools access global clinical trial data, presentation and publication data, and other public data sources. The gathered information is presented in a single database.
- Robust search tools. Search tools that offer semantic search capabilities and similar features make it easier to find relevant information in integrated data sets — even when previous researchers have used different terms or arranged their data collection in unfamiliar ways.
- Effective reporting and visualization tools. Data is often easier to understand and communicate when it is condensed into a report or visual. The best data integration platforms include these tools intuitively, making it easier to understand and share breakthroughs.
“With the advent of data-intensive science, a full integration of big data science and health care will bring a cross-field revolution to the medical community,” write Miye Wang and fellow researchers in a 2022 article in JMIR Medical Informatics. Customizable data integration tools place clinical trial teams and medical affairs departments at the vanguard of this revolution.
When data is integrated from multiple high-quality sources, researchers receive a more thorough context and a better understanding of key research questions. They are also better-equipped to identify and address gaps in existing knowledge.
Tools like TA Scan make it possible for clinical trial teams to leverage data sources with customized, seamless data integration. To learn more, request a demo today.
Images by: sheeler/©123RF.com, peopleimages12/©123RF.com