What Is Interactive Responsive Technology (irt) And How Does It Impact Clinical Trials? - Octalsoft

By Author: Octalsoft
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An IRT system is also known by several other names, including IVRS, IWRS, IXRS, and RTSM, but regardless of its name, the system provides a comprehensive set of capabilities for managing patient enrollment and drug supply operations throughout the clinical trial lifecycle. IRT, or Interactive Response Technology, is a technology that automates clinical trial supply management, randomization, and analytics. IRT clinical trials guarantee that participants receive the appropriate therapy at the appropriate time, allow for improved drug supply logistics tracking, and allow researchers to collect real-time data from people during the trial.

An IRT clinical trial software can assist in enhancing productivity, decreasing risks, and reducing costs in clinical investigations by providing different automations. But there’s more. Read on for the top 5 areas of impact of an IRT deployed in Clinical trials.

The Advantages of Deploying IRT to Clinical Trials

Patient Enrollment, Randomization, and Blind Protection - As compared to manual techniques, using the IRT to manage enrollment and/or randomization automates the ...
... process and eliminates human error. To preserve research blindness, the system enables complicated protocol enrollment and randomization design and rigorously controls sensitive information such as treatment arm and drug treatment assignments.

1. Patient Randomization

The IRT will randomly allocate patients to treatment arms in a methodical manner. There are various commonly utilized approaches, including central, subject-stratified, and/or location-stratified randomization systems. The IRT will allocate the individual to the appropriate treatment arm during the randomization visit based on the programmed randomization process. In most cases, IRT clinical trial solutions will also provide the individual with the medicine kit that corresponds to the randomized treatment arm.

To properly grasp how effectively an IRT randomizes patients in a double-blind experiment, consider how it was done before the IRT was available. When an IRT is not used, each patient on the randomization list is assigned a treatment type and matching kit number. The number is sealed in an envelope with a sequential number on it. A batch of envelopes and the related kits are sent to the experimental site, where envelopes are selected in order. The patient is subsequently given the appropriate kit.

While this approach works pretty well on a small scale, it is sluggish and only works with simple randomization patterns. Also, it is susceptible to human error.

IRT manages randomization in an automated and centralized manner. It can allow complicated classification and randomization designs that manual randomization cannot. Because randomization occurs without human interaction, it decreases human error. Furthermore, as with other parts of study management, the data is saved in the system for simple tracking. The automated randomization and medication assignment method avoids the need to maintain paper envelopes or cards at the location, where unblinded information might be compromised.

2. Study Blinding

The IRT clinical study plays a crucial role in preventing unblinded trial data from being shared improperly. Maintaining the blind in blinded trials is critical to the trial's integrity since it prevents bias in how patients are treated. Overall, the IRT functions almost as a force field, shielding unblinded information, such as treatment arm and medicine kind, from individuals who should not have access to it. Access to system functions is limited by user privileges, so only users who should have access to unblinded data in the IRT may view it.

The ideal IRT is frequently equipped with emergency unblinding capabilities. This can be configured such that Principal Investigators can unblind patients at their locations in the event of an emergency. When the site has an emergency code breach, the system quickly alerts the research team. Often, the patient who was unblinded by the site is instantly removed from the research, prohibiting the IRT from assigning any additional drugs. The IRT can also provide patients access to the Medical Safety team, which can unblind any patient at any location without interfering with their continued participation in the trial.

3. Supply Management

Individual kits in the depot and on-site are not labeled for specific patients. Instead, patients are given kits when they come for their appointments. As a result, shipments to locations only include enough stock to fulfill patient demand for a set period of time and resupplies are triggered when stockpiles reach a predetermined level. Because products are only assigned to patients when they come in for visits, this procedure increases medicine availability at the location while minimizing drug waste. Because the IRT knows what patients are at each location, their treatment arms, and the visit schedule, it can adjust the supply delivered to each site.

Controlling costs requires developing and maintaining an accurate prediction of product demand over the course of a clinical study. The IRT gives Supply Chain Managers real-time updates on patient registration and product inventories across the supply chain. This helps with budgeting, saves waste from hoarding goods, avoids stock-outs, and decreases the need for emergency steps to replace expired pharmaceuticals.

An interactive response technology in clinical trials may also keep track of product expiration dates to ensure that the patient has enough time to take the medication before it expires. It can also notify study managers when expirations are approaching. Because of their limited shelf life, medications that must be actively controlled require this notice. Probably most importantly, an IRT provides supply managers with a comprehensive picture of available supplies at the main depot, subsidiary depot, and site levels. As a result, they may change their inventory and distribution strategies to fit the current trial circumstances.

4. Inventory Management

The IRT provides a number of capabilities to manage the supply chain in a trial, from the moment supplies are packaged and distributed at the depot to medicine assignment, drug returns, and destruction. When goods are physically packaged and made available in the system, transportation to another depot or location is initiated and tracked. When the Sponsor activates an IRT site, the system sends a request to the depot for an initial supply of medicine. The depot fulfills the order and delivers it to the spot. When an order arrives at the site, personnel confirms receipt in the IRT and makes the medications accessible for patient assignment.

Patients who visit the site are given a medicine kit from the center's inventory. An algorithm within the system is constantly checking the inventory at each station. If the inventory falls below a certain threshold, the supply engine will submit a request to the depot to provide a replenishment. Shipments are made through this closed-loop procedure to accommodate newly enrolled patients, following visits, and any needed replacement stock.
Another key feature of the IRT that is sometimes neglected is the ease with which drug accountability, returns, and destruction may be accomplished. In many research, this procedure is still done manually, which is difficult and time-consuming. Sites can save time, enhance efficiency, and minimize data by switching the process electronically via the IRT.

5. Patient Tracking and Reporting

All patient and supply data contained in the IRT database is easily accessible via reports and data lookups. This gives the clinical and drug management teams real-time access to data, study parameters, and alarms. This facilitates reviewing the research as it goes and making any required changes to things like enrollment or site inventory settings to match the exact condition of the trial at any given moment.

In Summation

An IRT, in essence, enhances trial efficiency and the quality of accessible information during a trial. Sponsors, CROs, and investigators are conducting more sophisticated studies than ever before with fewer employees and fewer resources thanks to IRT systems.

An IRT solution enables sponsors to create and use the functionality they require while eliminating extraneous complications. This method aids in reducing the time it takes to launch a clinical study, allowing much-needed treatments to reach patients faster than ever before. When time is of importance, such as in the event of a worldwide pandemic, IRT devices can really be game changers by assisting effective treatments to demonstrate benefits as quickly as feasible and at a reduced cost.

Ultimately, the adoption of an IRT empowers researchers, sponsors, and study personnel with the tools and capabilities needed to effectively manage and monitor a clinical trial, leading to reliable outcomes, improved decision-making, and the advancement of evidence-based medicine. But not every IRT matches the standards of a modern clinical trial. What you need is a vetted partner like Octalsoft that can deploy a highly efficient IRT/IWRS that matches and exceeds benchmarks. Want to know more about how Octalsoft’s IRT/IWRS can turbocharge the productivity of personnel and boost the effectiveness of your clinical trial? Book a Demo with us NOW! With Octalsoft’s systems, sponsors win, investigators win and, most importantly, patients win.