Briefs

LifeTree Rolls Out EDC Upgrades

LifeTree eClinical, a provider of clinical electronic data capture (EDC) and analysis systems, said last week it was offering several new upgrades to its clinical EDC system, LifeTree ICTM.

LifeTree ICTM provides a web-based system for electronically capturing, sharing, validating and reporting clinical trial data. The new upgrades involve such items as source document verification (SDV), document uploads, images, data import, passwords, duplicate case report forms (CRFs) and epochs.

With the new features the clinical research associate can now perform SDV by item or in an entire CRF. Certain items in a CRF can even be set as mandatory for SDV.

Authorized users have the ability to upload documents and store them in a patient CRF, using Word documents, PDFs, etc. The documents are associated with an item in a patient CRF with 21 CFR Part 11 compliance.

A user can also now reset a password without calling LifeTree if locked out.

Studies with multiple phases or epochs can be accommodated. A user can divide the entire trial into a series of epochs, often synonymous with periods, phases or time segments of a trial.

ODIN Offers Worldwide RFID Tool

ODIN technologies just released its EasyTag for international markets. EasyTag is the only tag-testing product capable of working in every ultrahigh frequency range worldwide, the company said.

With EasyTag, end users and labs can scientifically measure the performance of different tags and locations on products in different geographies. This allows readers to pick the right tag and right location for their needs, ensuring 100- percent read rate possibility.

“Until now, European, Japanese and other overseas markets have been unable to conduct scientific testing of tagged product. EasyTag allows people for the first time to be able to test for their local frequency requirements from 860 – 960 MHz,” said ODIN technologies Vice President of Client Architecture Kevin MacDonald.

EasyTag for international frequencies will allow overseas markets to tag products in a way that will make it possible to achieve 100-percent read rates in real world applications. The current trial-and-error methods being used can be replaced.

McKesson Trumpets Validation Program

McKesson, a healthcare services company and the world’s largest provider of clinical decision support solutions, has validated 14 alliance partners for the 2006 version of InterQual Criteria.

The validation process confirms an alliance partner’s integration of McKesson’s premier clinical decision support criteria into its care management application. The strength of the validation program has led to the integration of InterQual into more care management applications than any similar product in the industry, the company said. An additional six companies are expected to achieve validation.

Now in its 10th year, McKesson said the InterQual Alliance Partner Program allows McKesson and its alliance partners to offer healthcare organizations streamlined access to the industry’s most respected clinical content and evidence-based criteria. McKesson develops and maintains these partnerships with healthcare solution providers to ensure that healthcare organizations have a full spectrum of options for integrating InterQual Criteria into care management workflows.

Integrations designed by the following organizations have already been validated for InterQual 2006: 3M, ACS Midas+, Canopy Systems/A4 Health Systems, Cogent Integrated Solutions, DST Health Solutions, Electronic Data Systems, Epic Systems, Extended Care Information Network, IMA Technologies, Picis, SoftMed Systems and TCS Healthcare Technologies.

MasterControl Inks Partnership Deal

MasterControl announced a strategic partnership with CDC Software to allow the integration of complementary products into a software solution for companies. Under the partnership, CDC Software will offer the MasterControl quality management suite as part of its Ross enterprise resource planning solution, designed to help process manufacturers worldwide manage operations with its forecasting and scheduling, formula-based production and yield management, quality control, inventory management, complex product costing, streamlined regulatory compliance and business analytics capabilities.