eResearchTechnology, Inc. is a company that develops tools to automate and facilitate data collection for clinical trials. Today eRT announced the availability of the Suicidality Monitoring System as part of their automated phone questionnaire system, ePRO.
The product standardizes the collection of subjective data to reduce bias in clinical trials. It also promises to lower the time and cost involved in these assessments, while improving patient comfort. The system will automatically contact a clinician if a patient reaches a certain threshold of “suicidality.”
Here are some more comments from the press release:
“…The SMS models the ideal human interviewer, comprehensively and consistently covering every relevant topic while efficiently branching around irrelevant questions. Sound science requires standardization of
measurement; the SMS provides a standard of procedural reliability that surpasses the reliability of human investigators performing such assessments.”
“Just as the use of digital ECGs in assessing cardiac safety has become an essential part of drug development, we believe that the use of SMS in assessing suicidality will also become an integral part of the drug development process,” said Jeffrey S. Litwin, M.D., eRT’s Chief Medical Officer.
Read the press release here…
