RECONNECT network: New website and seminar
The Network for Decentralized Studies in HSØ launches new websites and invites you to its first seminar, Monday, November 25. The seminar requires registration.
In the photo, Anne Therese Tveter, Tuva Moseng and Marie Skovli Pettersen
Websites
The websites will be a central source of information for everyone working with decentralized clinical trials in South-Eastern Health, with updates on activities, seminars and access to useful resources.
Seminar November 25
The program includes presentations from South-Eastern Health on innovation and how to make medical equipment accessible.
Experiences in bringing medical apps to market are the starting point for the panel discussion: How can we avoid the "pilot graveyard"?
The seminar will begin before lunch with RECONNECT's status and future plans.
The seminar is free, but requires registration by November 15. For more information about the program and registration, see the websites at RECONNECT-nettverk.no: RECONNECT seminar November 25: "How to avoid the pilot cemetery?"
About RECONNECT
RECONNECT is led by postdoctoral fellow Tuva Moseng at Diakonhjemmet Hospital. The goal is to make clinical trials more accessible to patients through decentralized solutions and collaboration across institutions. The network is supported by South-Eastern Norway Health and brings together experts from a number of hospitals and research environments. Decentralized solutions refer to various elements of a study that mean that participants do not need to travel to a hospital or study center, but can participate in the study from home. Examples of this could be solutions for digital consents and data collection or follow-up and treatment delivered through mobile apps.
– RECONNECT was established to gather experiences and increase knowledge about studies with decentralized elements among researchers. If more clinical studies use decentralized elements, this can help make clinical studies more accessible to more patients, reduce travel burden and utilize resources more efficiently, explains Moseng.
The network is linked to work package 5 of REMEDY, the research center for treatment in rheumatology and musculoskeletal diseases. Central to this work package are innovative approaches to decentralized treatment.
Interdisciplinary collaboration and broad participation
RECONNECT is an interdisciplinary collaboration between research groups in South-East Norway, including Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo University Hospital (OUS), Akershus University Hospital (Ahus), Vestre Viken, Innlandet Hospital, Østfold Hospital and Sørlandet Hospital. The network also includes the Hospital Pharmacies HF, which plays a central role in the work package for medication management.
Professor Anne Therese Tveter, who initiated the network, emphasizes the importance of the broad collaboration:
“By gathering knowledge from different professional environments and experiences from different studies, we can solve the challenges that decentralization of clinical trials brings. It is important to share experiences on everything from digital data collection to drug management.”
Marie Skovli Pettersen is an advisor to the network and is responsible for collecting and disseminating knowledge from the various work packages. She says that it is about making research more accessible, both for researchers and patients.
“We want to make it easier to share experiences and build expertise to increase the use of decentralized elements in clinical trials in Norway,” says Pettersen.
The way forward for RECONNECT
The network is still in its early stages, but work has already begun to map existing digital solutions, medical devices, and legislation surrounding drug management in decentralized studies. One of the goals is to develop a digital toolbox that can support researchers when choosing a method for data collection.
– We hope that our network, which collects experiences from studies with decentralized elements, will become an important resource for researchers throughout the region, says Pettersen.
How can the network contribute to better research? A concrete example
Researchers spend a lot of time finding a digital solution for data collection that meets all the needs of the study.
“One system may have features that work well for one patient group, but be unsuitable for another. There is no universal system that can meet all needs,” explains Pettersen.
She points to an example from a work package meeting, where the project manager talked about the challenges of evaluating several different solutions before finding a system that suited the project. One of the options they considered had almost all the necessary features, but was only approved for use in another region and therefore could not be used in the project.
Project managers often have to spend a lot of time familiarizing themselves with different digital data collection systems before they can decide whether they meet their needs.
“When they have to thoroughly evaluate many options, it becomes an extra time-consuming process in the start-up phase. It is challenging, as you want to get started with the study quickly,” says Pettersen. “When we compile an overview of which systems exist and what functions they offer, the researchers will be able to find a suitable solution in a more efficient way,” she adds.
Upcoming events
Events that are relevant to the network are published on the website. Be it courses, seminars and meetings in the work packages.
If you are conducting decentralized clinical studies in South-Eastern Norway, the websites will become an increasingly important channel for relevant information.
– The quality of the websites depends on everyone in the network contributing the information we request, explains network manager Tuva Moseng.
