Improving efficiency and UX for eCOA projects
We partnered with Exco InTouch (ERT) to develop an industry-changing platform to deliver eCOA projects more efficiently and provide a better user experience.
Situation
Exco InTouch (ERT) needed to grow their eCOA business in a more efficient, scalable way than the traditional strategy of expanding headcount to address increases in demand. To achieve this, they had identified an opportunity to create a new eCOA platform that reduced the project-by-project demand on highly skilled, expensive software engineering resources by designing a system that could be implemented by the Project Management Office (PMO).
In addition, the risk-averse nature of the clinical trials industry meant that eCOA user-interfaces were typically very basic and outdated. Exco saw the opportunity to differentiate their offering through a consumer look and feel. This would provide a better experience for all users (sponsors, sites, and patients), but also enable the sales team to demonstrate the platform benefits clearly in customer meetings.
Platform Objectives
- Deliver eCOA projects more efficiently, to enable the business to scale and accelerate grow
- Reduce study set-up reliance on resources, especially software development teams
- Reduce resources required to support post go-live changes
- Provide a consumer grade look and feel to improve user experience
- Enable the sales team to clearly demonstrate the benefits of the platform during customer meetings
Solution
Exco InTouch had significant clinical research domain knowledge and understood how to improve the current eCOA study delivery process. However, they did not have the breadth of design and development experience to address the associated step-change in UI/UX that was essential to their strategy.
Nuom provided the user design and development experience necessary to deliver Exco’s objectives. Prototyping was essential to the development process. Companies typically spend months doing a specification and then moving into development, but the agile methodology, with prototypes meant that whole process was streamlined to a few weeks. Additionally, the wireframe designs and prototypes were presented to the board to maintain their buy-in and gain approval to continue investment.
“Bringing in a team that understands interaction design, how to work with a piece of software, how to build something where you can break a problem down into discrete parts, or how to design for a broad population – having that skill on top of the domain knowledge we had within the organization provided a whole new level of polish and much more clarity to the end-user.”
Product Owner, Exco InTouch
Outcome
The Gather eCOA platform was a huge success for Exco InTouch, enabling them to accelerate sustainable growth and become the third largest eCOA provider globally.
The platform resulted in a 50% reduction in study delivery time (16 weeks to 8 weeks) with reduced reliance on software development resources. It also provided a number of direct benefits for sponsors as study prototypes could be created within 2-3 weeks so sponsors could see the look and feel early on and share with their internal stakeholders well in advance of User Acceptance Testing.
The templated approach also enabled Exco to provide Ethics/IRB screenshots in just one week following the kick-off meeting, which was a major improvement for sponsor teams who are under enormous pressure to meet First-Patient, First-Visit timelines.
Finally, from a sales perspective, the user-centric design for both the patient facing applications and the back-end portal enabled Exco to engage customer in a different way, including demonstration of real-time study builds during customer meetings.
Key benefits
- 50% faster study delivery
- 75% reduction in change control effort
- Increased margins
- Improved user experience for sponsors, sites, and patients
- Enhanced sales experience and customer buy-in
- Positioned Exco InTouch as leaders in the eCOA industry
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Improving efficiency and UX for eCOA projects
We partnered with Exco InTouch (ERT) to develop an industry-changing platform to deliver eCOA projects more efficiently and provide a better user experience.
Situation
Exco InTouch (ERT) needed to grow their eCOA business in a more efficient, scalable way than the traditional strategy of expanding headcount to address increases in demand. To achieve this, they had identified an opportunity to create a new eCOA platform that reduced the project-by-project demand on highly skilled, expensive software engineering resources by designing a system that could be implemented by the Project Management Office (PMO).
In addition, the risk-averse nature of the clinical trials industry meant that eCOA user-interfaces were typically very basic and outdated. Exco saw the opportunity to differentiate their offering through a consumer look and feel. This would provide a better experience for all users (sponsors, sites, and patients), but also enable the sales team to demonstrate the platform benefits clearly in customer meetings.
Platform Objectives
- Deliver eCOA projects more efficiently, to enable the business to scale and accelerate grow
- Reduce study set-up reliance on resources, especially software development teams
- Reduce resources required to support post go-live changes
- Provide a consumer grade look and feel to improve user experience
- Enable the sales team to clearly demonstrate the benefits of the platform during customer meetings
Solution
Exco InTouch had significant clinical research domain knowledge and understood how to improve the current eCOA study delivery process. However, they did not have the breadth of design and development experience to address the associated step-change in UI/UX that was essential to their strategy.
Nuom provided the user design and development experience necessary to deliver Exco’s objectives. Prototyping was essential to the development process. Companies typically spend months doing a specification and then moving into development, but the agile methodology, with prototypes meant that whole process was streamlined to a few weeks. Additionally, the wireframe designs and prototypes were presented to the board to maintain their buy-in and gain approval to continue investment.
“Bringing in a team that understands interaction design, how to work with a piece of software, how to build something where you can break a problem down into discrete parts, or how to design for a broad population – having that skill on top of the domain knowledge we had within the organization provided a whole new level of polish and much more clarity to the end-user.”
Product Owner, Exco InTouch
Outcome
The Gather eCOA platform was a huge success for Exco InTouch, enabling them to accelerate sustainable growth and become the third largest eCOA provider globally.
The platform resulted in a 50% reduction in study delivery time (16 weeks to 8 weeks) with reduced reliance on software development resources. It also provided a number of direct benefits for sponsors as study prototypes could be created within 2-3 weeks so sponsors could see the look and feel early on and share with their internal stakeholders well in advance of User Acceptance Testing.
The templated approach also enabled Exco to provide Ethics/IRB screenshots in just one week following the kick-off meeting, which was a major improvement for sponsor teams who are under enormous pressure to meet First-Patient, First-Visit timelines.
Finally, from a sales perspective, the user-centric design for both the patient facing applications and the back-end portal enabled Exco to engage customer in a different way, including demonstration of real-time study builds during customer meetings.
Key benefits
- 50% faster study delivery
- 75% reduction in change control effort
- Increased margins
- Improved user experience for sponsors, sites, and patients
- Enhanced sales experience and customer buy-in
- Positioned Exco InTouch as leaders in the eCOA industry