New Electronic and Web-based Applications, Sites, and Technologies
McGraw-Hill’s Access Medicine Launches Online Neurology Resource
McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing has released Adams and Victor’s Principles of Neurology on its AccessMedicine.com platform. Adams and Victor’s Principles of Neurology is considered by medical professionals worldwide as a leading reference in its field, covering a full spectrum of neurology topics. The online resource includes several enhancements and updates on medical advances from world-renowned clinicians and researchers. Reflecting the current clinical and theoretical aspects of modern neurology, it provides physicians with essential basic background, historical information, and current issues. Continuously updated for the diagnosis and treatment of neurological diseases, Adams and Victor’s Neurology Online features new research findings that affect neurological care, expanded coverage of neuro-imaging, and crucial new material on molecular mechanisms of disease. Signs and symptoms sections are integrated throughout the online resource. Additionally, drug names are linked to drug monographs in the continuously updated Gold Standard Clinical Pharmacology database to speed diagnoses and treatments. Adams and Victor’s Neurology Online includes more than 800 images. “At McGraw-Hill, we are constantly creating and expanding our rich and easily accessible digital content and resources — providing physicians, students, and other healthcare professionals with the tools they need to make critical patient-care decisions,” says Michael Hays, VP of McGraw-Hill Digital. The addition of Adams and Victor’s Principles of Neurology Online to McGraw-Hill’s AccessMedicine.com is the latest example of how our authoritative content is helping to advance diagnosis, treatment, and medical education worldwide, says Michael Hays, VP of McGraw-Hill Digital. EduNeering Enhances Its Knowledge Management System EduNeering Holdings Inc. has expanded the functionality and added new benefits to its fully validated ComplianceWire knowledge platform. ComplianceWire is designed specifically to meet the high security and quality needs of FDA-regulated companies, providing full compliance with 21 CFR Part 11. The expanded capabilities of ComplianceWire enable enhanced learning, document, and process control in several areas. The Visual Job Aids (VJA) enable organizations to capture and transfer company-specific procedures and best practices using mixed media, such as sound, video clips, and interactivity, thereby strengthening employee understanding and integration of job-specific information. Enhanced distribution, collection, analysis, and storage of information necessary for regulatory or internal compliance enables managers to identify job-related proficiency data, evaluate employee progress, and verify employee skills. CV Builder, a tool designed for managing employees’ curricula vitae (CV), centralizes all relevant information about each employee in a secure data bank, eliminating paper-based collection and streamlining update procedures. Automated proficiency testing allows managers to author, publish, and edit stand-alone exams for testing employee understanding of content, policies, or procedures. With these new capabilities, ComplianceWire provides even more value, not only by boosting workforce performance and meeting compliance needs but also by streamlining the internal-management procedures that can directly affect a business’ bottom line, says Donald A. Deieso, Ph.D., President and CEO of EduNeering Holdings Inc. Oracle Introduces Clinical-Data Repository Oracle Corp. has introduced Oracle Clinical Data Repository, a solution that will help life-sciences organizations make better decisions based on more accurate and timely information. In turn, those decisions can accelerate the introduction of new products, enhance productivity, manage compliance, and reduce risk. Oracle Clinical Data Repository supports the integration of clinical data from multiple sources and provides a repository for integrating and reporting clinical and nonclinical data, thereby enabling regulatory compliance. “The regulatory drive toward adoption of standards, such as CDISC, will compel life-sciences organizations to standardize the way they manage their clinical data and how they format and structure the data for submission to regulators around the world,” says Mychelle Mowry, VP for global health industries at Oracle. “Oracle Clinical Data Repository enables organizations to address these requirements by providing a controlled, structured environment in which to build and store clinical information in a ready-to-submit format.” Oracle Clinical Data Repository is designed to receive and present data using current and future data exchange standards. This capability enables organizations to build tools on today’s established standards while providing a platform to leverage emerging standards. The solution provides end-to-end support for integrating data from various clinical sources and provides the ability to manage the complete workflow process across the entire development organization. All data objects are fully audited and version controlled in Oracle Clinical Data Repository, providing complete traceability from the data source, through the transformation process, and to the data and reports themselves. The new product is designed for efficiency in development and use by providing natural environments for two distinct communities: developers and clinical researchers. It provides a single program development environment for developers and intuitive browsing tools for clinical researchers, all within a Web environment. Its role-based security features help ensure that users see only the data appropriate for their security access. Oracle has scheduled a general release of the Clinical Data Repository for later this year. Boehringer Ingelheim has worked closely with Oracle on the development of Oracle Clinical Data Repository. The company was seeking an integration solution that would enable it to accelerate reporting, streamline regulatory compliance through the creation of audit trails, and enhance productivity through faster access to data. Oracle Clinical Data Repository supports the integration of clinical data from multiple sources and provides a repository for integrating and reporting clinical and nonclinical data, thereby enabling regulatory compliance. Lathian Launches Online Market Research Solution Lathian’s Market Research solution empowers pharma marketers to take the temperature and the pulse of their campaigns, says V. Brewster Jones, Chairman and CEO of Lathian Systems Inc. Life-sciences marketers can now improve the reach and results of their marketing campaigns with a new online market-research platform developed by Lathian Systems Inc. Lathian’s new market-research solution, a major component of the company’s Spectrum of Solutions suite, offers pharma marketers access to audience demographics, prescribing behavior, brand effectiveness, and other vital statistics. This information, when combined, provides crucial insights to improve brand positioning and sales results. The new solution includes: • eBrand Messaging, which determines brand perception and value. • ePractice Insights, which verifies prescribing behavior. • eAdvisory Boards, which supplement live meetings. WKHealth Releases Database to Support Electronic Prescribing Wolters Kluwer Health (WKHealth) has released RxNorm Cross Reference Files, a more user-friendly version of the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) standardized nomenclature for clinical drugs. The new data provide a subset of the fields available in the Unified Medical Language System (UMLS) metathesaurus for RxNorm and maps them to existing WKHealth concepts. RxNorm has been identified to support the electronic prescribing (eRx) initiatives included in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. By providing NLM’s RxNorm standard drug identifier, healthcare providers can send messages between systems and map drug concepts between proprietary data sets at a level other than the National Drug Code (NDC). “Eventually we see RxNorm as a way to share drug concepts for formularies between pharmacy benefit managers and electronic medical records,” says Alan Hess, VP and general manager of Wolters Kluwer Health’s Clinical Tools business unit. RxNorm has been identified to support the electronic prescribing (eRx) initiatives included in the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Dendrite Offers Help Desk Services for the Pharma Industry Dendrite International Inc. has launched an Integrated Support Center, offering pharmaceutical-specific sales support services. Unlike a traditional help desk, Dendrite’s Integrated Support Center features a Customer Interaction Hub to enable service integration, history tracking, and linkage across multiple service channels. Dendrite’s Integrated Support Center enables problem resolution through its easily accessible channels, ranging from interactive voice response (IVR), Web self-service, chat, and e-mail to phone. With these newly enhanced, integrated features, sales representatives can get the right answers to the simplest or the most complex questions through the right channel. Dendrite’s pharmaceutical industry-trained personnel form the critical underpinning of the Integrated Support Center. They enable Dendrite to quickly and effectively resolve issues that range from the simplest password reset and Internet connectivity to the more complex physician call plans, sample management, and regulatory compliance. “The new capabilities customers can leverage through the Integrated Support Center reflect Dendrite’s commitment to creating adaptive and leading-edge solutions designed to improve pharmaceutical sales and marketing productivity,” says Joe Ripp, president and chief operating officer of Dendrite. “Helping our customers meet their business challenges has been, and will continue to be, a top priority. We are confident that the Integrated Support Center will continue to evolve to support the growing needs of the pharmaceutical industry.” Dendrite’s Integrated Support Center features a Customer Interaction Hub to enable service integration, history tracking, and linkage across multiple service channels. Simulations Plus Enhances Software for Drug Discovery Simulations Plus Inc. has released version 4.0 of its ClassPharmer software product. With dramatic improvements in speed and function, the enhanced software is expected to improve drug-discovery productivity. Major revisions in the algorithms, coupled with a transition to a faster programming language, resulted in a ten- to thousand-fold speed increase in critical tasks, such as substructure matching, predictive-model generation, and chemical-class identification. ClassPharmer 4.0 enables detailed analyses of thousands of molecules in just minutes versus hours or days using the previous version. “This release marks a major milestone in this new business area for Simulations Plus,” says David Miller, Ph.D., senior scientist and product manager for ClassPharmer at Simulations Plus. “Our acquisition of the former ClassPharmer software last November, combined with the acquisition of Sage Informatics’ ChemTK software, paved the way for this completely new version of ClassPharmer.” With ClassPharmer 4.0, it is now possible to perform detailed analyses of thousands of molecules in just minutes versus hours or days using the previous version, says David Miller, Ph.D., Senior Scientist and Product Manager for ClassPharmer at Simulations Plus Inc. CRF Launches Improved Website CRF Inc. has launched a new and improved Website at crfhealth.com. The site provides demos of the company’s e-diary solutions, archived issues of its e-workshops and newsletters, as well as industry news and views. The company will continue to add features throughout 2006. Timo Ahopelto, worldwide VP of operations at CRF, says the need for e-diaries grows faster than Web designers can keep up. The challenge in launching a new Website is that our company, and the need for e-diaries, grows faster than our Web designers can keep up with, says Timo Ahopelto, Worldwide VP of Operations, at CRF Inc. HealthSTAR Launches Meeting Logistics Management System The use of the configurable dashboard metrics enables real-time management of any and all meetings activities, speaker utilization, and budgets, says Jim Sivori, Chief Financial Officer of HealthSTAR Communications Inc. HealthSTAR Communications Inc. has launched Proton, an automated meeting logistics management system for field use. The system is aimed at improving performance, reducing costs, and assuring compliance. Key features include: ease-of-use by representatives in the field who have become more involved in managing promotional meetings; prospective, rules-based compliance with OIG and PhRMA guidelines and regulations, with modules that are configurable to company policies; automated venue sourcing, resulting in up to a 10% savings on pass-through expenses; and financial reconciliation in three to seven days post program. Proton controls all aspects of pharmaceutical field speaker programs from the very beginning, and the system reduces out-of-pocket expenses with a comprehensive centralized venue contracting repository and unique bidding process. PDS Releases IVR Solution for Clinical Trials Phoenix Data Systems Inc. (PDS) has launched PDS IVR, an interactive voice response (IVR) system supporting Phase I-IV clinical trials. Phoenix Data Systems Inc. (PDS) has launched PDS IVR, an interactive voice response (IVR) system supporting Phase I-IV clinical trials. The system was specifically created as an e-clinical module that is tightly integrated with electronic data capture technology, but it also is available for stand-alone implementations. “By incorporating these capabilities into our core EDC offering, PDS is making it easier to run clinical trials while further increasing efficiency, minimizing errors, and reducing costs,” says William Claypool, M.D., CEO of PDS. PDS IVR uses touch-tone keypad selection to interact with callers. It also provides appropriate responses, in many forms, including voice, fax, callback, or e-mail. Unifying IVR and EDC technologies allows patient data to be transferred directly into EDC case report forms. It also simplifies data entry, reduces call times, and supports more efficient data analysis. Since the data are integrated into the online EDC module, investigators can view subject assessments in a timely manner. Angel.com and National Directory Information Services Join Forces to Offer IVR Marketing Solution The solution incorporates Web- and phone-based activation of copay reduction cards for new prescriptions. National Directory Information Services LLC is using Angel.com technology to provide major pharmaceutical companies with an IVR solution to support national marketing programs. The solution incorporates Web- and phone-based activation of copay reduction cards for new prescriptions. The Web and IVR applications pair National Directory Information Services’ proprietary 411XML directory technology with Angel.com’s SiteBuilder on-demand IVR solution. Follow Up Angel.com, McLean, Va., provides on-demand call center and interactive voice response (IVR) solutions that help organizations. For more information, visit angel.com. CRF Inc., Waltham, Mass., is a global provider of e-diaries and wireless data-collection solutions for the biopharmaceutical industry. For more information, visit crfhealth.com. Dendrite International Inc., Bedminster, N.J., enables sales, marketing, clinical, and compliance solutions for the global pharmaceutical industry. For more information, visit dendrite.com. EduNeering Holdings Inc., Princeton, N.J., develops technology-enabled knowledge solutions for improving business performance and assuring regulatory compliance. For more information, visit eduneering.com. HealthSTAR Communications Inc., Woodbridge, N.J., is a marketing-services network with the mission to significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of health are communications. For more information, visit healthstarcom.com. Lathian Systems Inc., Plymouth Meeting, Pa., offers online promotional and educational solutions to help life-sciences companies improve customer relationships, enhance product education, and increase sales. For more information, visit lathian.com. McGraw-Hill Medical Publishing, New York, is a leading global provider of print and digital reference and educational content for the healthcare industry. It is a unit of McGraw-Hill Professional, a division of The McGraw-Hill Companies. For more information, visit mheducation.com. National Directory Information Services LLC, Orinda, Calif., develops automated directory assistance information. For more information, visit 411xml.com. Oracle Corp., Redwood Shores, Calif., is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information, visit oracle.com. Phoenix Data Systems Inc., King of Prussia, Pa., delivers electronic data capture, interactive voice response, and data-management services for clinical data management. For more information, visit phoenixdatasystems.net. Simulations Plus Inc., Lancaster, Calif., is a developer of drug-discovery and development simulation and modeling software. For more information, visit simulations-plus.com. Wolters Kluwer Health, Conshohocken, Pa., a division of Wolters Kluwer, provides information for professionals and students in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy, and the pharmaceutical industry. For more information, visit wkhealth.com.