Clinical trials play a crucial role in advancing medical science and improving patient outcomes across the world. Newly developed drugs implemented through clinical trials have the potential to cure disease and reduce symptoms for millions of people across the world.
However, all new medications, surgical procedures, and behavioral interventions must go through rigorous clinical research testing to be deemed safe and effective before being approved by the FDA. Once approved, treatments can be provided to the public.
Without clinical trials, medicine wouldn’t advance very far, if at all. Clinical research trials allow us to study new treatments to find out if they’re useful (and safe) in a relatively short amount of time. The fact that so many people have been willing to participate in clinical research studies has made today’s medical advancements possible.
Clinical trials improve patient outcomes
Through the help of clinical research, patient outcomes can improve through a drug or therapy that isn't approved by the FDA or readily available to the public. In fact, simply participating in a clinical research study can improve participant health outcomes. Experts say the extra attention patients receive during a clinical trial often encourages them to be more proactive in their own care.
Positive patient outcomes have also been proven to be higher in hospitals that routinely participate in clinical trials. For example, Fresenius Medical Care reported on a study of 494 hospitals where the institutions that participated in clinical trials had fewer heart attack deaths.
FMC concluded that patients receive better care when they participate in clinical research studies. This conclusion is further supported by the fact that Fresenius Kidney Care dialysis facilities support high volumes of research activity and routinely achieve high performance ratings on patient outcomes, satisfaction, and financial performance.
Clinical trials have four phases
Each clinical trial is different; however, they follow the same general format. Each clinical trial goes through four phases where each phase is its own trial. The first phase of a clinical trial is mostly experimental and is usually performed with a small group of people (about 20-80 people). During this phase, researchers work hard to determine the safety of the treatment, find appropriate dosage, and make note of any side effects.
The second phase of a clinical trial uses between 100-300 people and focuses on determining the effectiveness of a treatment, device, or drug. The third phase of a clinical trial also remains focused on gathering more data on safety, studies different populations, experiments with dosage, and studies the effects of combining various treatments or drugs. Phase three generally uses several hundred to three thousand people. At this stage, if the trial results have been safe and effective, the FDA will approve the treatment, device, or drug.
Even though the FDA approves treatments at phase three, drugs and devices continue with one more phase to monitor safety and effectiveness in larger, more diverse populations. Sometimes drugs and other treatments don’t show all side effects until they’ve been in use over time or by diverse people with varying genetics.
Cutting-edge video observation gives clinical research a big boost
Sometimes researchers need to record their sessions or clinical trials for playback at a later time, or for use in training new clinicians. Until recently, video recordings were generally made with awkward tripods and iPads with little to no thought regarding security. Depending on how much hard drive space the recording device had, researchers had to be selective with their choice to record.
Today, there are better solutions for live observation and video recording including our platform, VALT.
Modern video platforms allow you to mount as many high-definition IP cameras as needed across multiple rooms, and provide clinicians with easy access to live feeds and saved recordings and all video recordings are securely encrypted for your peace of mind.
VALT makes clinical research available for the future
Future generations of researchers may need to sift through your data, but that’s not exactly anyone’s idea of fun. Even researchers get tired of shuffling papers and disorganized electronic files. VALT, however, changes all of that. With VALT, you can create an expansive video library of clinical research recordings available for future viewing with the click of a button.
If you’re ready to take clinical research to a new level, take our video observation solution for a spin and see what it can do. Learn more about VALT by requesting a demo today!