PHT Corporation pioneers "time travel" for clinical research

PHT Corporation has patented its own "time travel" technology for researchers to use when carrying out clinical trials.

The capability is used to save time in new drug development programs, allowing for more efficient testing and supporting clinician and patient eDiary training, meaning that end users can easily see how the system works across a full period of use.

The technology is officially entitled Clinical Investigation Data Logging With Contextual Time Shifting and is a feature of the PHT LogPad system, allowing time stamped data to be captured, stored and displayed from clinical research participants.

It has already been used in more than 500 global clinical studies and was originally invented by PHT Principal software engineer Chris Crowley, who worked alongside PHT co-founder and chief science officer Dr Stephen Raymond on the project.

Mr Crowley has a dozen years of experience developing apps for the pharma industry, resulting in him overseeing the design and implementation of a number of infrastructure elements for PHT eDiaries, such as a configurable modular scheduling system, communication support, data management and manipulation.

"The greatest benefit of Time Travel is improved product quality and usability. We can perform testing more efficiently without compromising the natural behavior of the LogPad scheduling engine with test code or ‘back doors.

"Time Travel also can reduce training time by removing the need to mentally calculate scheduled events. It opens the possibilities of automated testing, and improves accuracy and efficiency by reducing the likelihood of time wasting missteps," he explained.

Dr Raymond also commented on the technology, stating that its most powerful attribute is that it does not interfere with the LogPad's regular behaviour.

"Instead of forcing the engine to display a report, it advances to where it would normally be displayed. We’re testing the actual engine and its actual behaviour, so we’re validating exactly how the LogPad will behave over months of use with a complicated drug protocol schedule," he went on to say.

Posted by Neil Clark