Atrium employs Accolade
A large general hospital in the Netherlands is implementing Sopheon’s Accolade software to manage its clinical trials. Deployment of the solution is expected to help Atrium Medical Center enhance management of trials activity and ensure compliance with European Union (EU) clinical research regulations.
In May 2004, new regulations went into effect across the EU to establish guidelines for clinical trial procedures. Atrium conducts about 70 clinical trials per year for pharmaceutical companies. Use of the new system, which will eventually handle as many as 240 trials at one time for the hospital, is expected to increase revenue from clinical trials by enabling faster trial preparation and execution, higher quality results and improved service to clients.
“Pharmaceutical companies judge our clinical trial work by the quality of the results and the speed and cost-effectiveness with which those results are delivered,” says Dr. Graham Ramsay, a member of Atrium’s board of directors. “Patients depend upon our ability to effect the right kinds of innovation and make the right capital investments to ensure that they receive the best available care. Sopheon’s software will integrate our processes for managing clinical trials and innovation projects, making those processes more stable, predictable and efficient. As a consequence, we will be able to deliver high-quality results to our pharmaceutical clients more rapidly and with reduced paperwork, while making certain that the innovation projects we choose to support and implement are the ones that will most greatly benefit those who turn to us with their healthcare needs.”
Sopheon also worked with Atrium to configure the solution to fit a new process incorporating elements of the Six Sigma manufacturing methodology, which will be applied to management of innovation initiatives. Executives and administrators will use the software to select and support implementation of the 40 or so new projects the hospital invests in per year to improve patient care and update facilities. Current initiatives range from a multi-million dollar construction project to designing a new patient identification system, Sopheon reports in a recent news release.