Today, people use their phones for almost everything: ordering food, organizing finances or scheduling out their day-to-day tasks. Mobile devices are becoming the most used tool in people’s lives. But there is one area where mobile devices may be underused: research studies.
It can be challenging to get accurate and real-time data when conducting a population-based research study in a hospital or lab setting. Many studies rely on patient self-reporting – which in turns relies on a patient’s ability to recall details precisely and accurately. Using a phone as a data collection tool could give the patient the ability to log their symptoms, activities and more in real time. But secure, research-oriented tools for doing so can be hard to find.
At a recent Brigham Research Institute’s Research Connection Live Lunch, Yvonne Lee, MD, director of pain research in the BWH Division of Rheumatology, touched on these challenges. Lee and her team had been struggling to get daily data from patients in a secure, HIPAA-compliant fashion for their research projects on rheumatoid arthritis.
Read the full article in Clinical & Research News