Of Protocols and Programmers

A few weeks ago, I reflected on how there seemed to be a lack of social community related to clinical and statistical IT. I heard from a number of people in the industry expressing their hope that these types of communities are beginning to see some light. As I’ve spoken with people, one theme I detect is a shared belief that there is a strong relationship between transparency, health outcomes, and improved data access and analysis.

I was pleased to be asked to present at Medidata’s Customer Advisory Board meeting this week in New York. For those that may not regularly work in the pharmaceutical industry, Medidata is a leading provider of electronic data capture (EDC) software that allows medical practitioners (physicians, nurses, study coordinators) to electronically collect and manage patient research data. EDC has been one of the most significant areas where we see ecosystem convergence: EDC systems are pharmaceutical applications, but the users are providers. So I was quite interested to see Medidata’s announcement just prior the meeting of their new Medidata Developer Central. The community site provides an environment where anyone can reach other developers and access Medidata’s programming interfaces to build integrations with Medidata’s Rave product. Though this is not currently a model of open source software development per se, it is unique in empowering any programmer to do what has been a perennial pain: get data into and out of EDC systems easily. As Medidata and the rest of our industry are able to overcome basic integration barriers, other areas of innovation are emerging that I think could have much broader-reaching implications for both pharmaceutical and provider organizations.

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