Healthcare Technology Featured Article

November 30, 2010

Healthcare Technology and News: Octagon, ScenPro Partner for Legacy Medical Data Conversion Services


Octagon Research Solutions, Inc., a provider of software and services to the life sciences industry has partnered with ScenPro, Inc., a specialist in providing expert technical and professional services in the areas of medical data modeling, medical data standards, systems analysis, and the development of health care informatics systems.

Both organizations are collaborating to deliver comprehensive data standards expertise and conversion capacity to further the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) ability to review and evaluate data across studies.

Recently, FDA awarded an Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contract for “Legacy Data Conversion Services,” to ScenPro, Inc., that is partnering with Octagon Research Solutions, Inc., on the performance of the contract.

Both ScenPro and Octagon will work toward supporting this large-scale, complex project of converting legacy study data to an electronic standard format(s).

This project involves the Clinical Data Interchange Standards Consortium (CDISC), a global non-profit standards development organization that has established vendor-neutral, platform-independent standards to support the acquisition, exchange, submission and archive of clinical research data and metadata.

Currently, legacy data resides in numerous different formats at FDA and according to the companies, this data must be converted into standard structures. ScenPro and Octagon will work with the agency to this end.

Both will work toward harmonizing variable names and terminology while supporting the advancement of current standards and the development of new standardized values for domain data as required.

This collaboration will ensure accurate and efficient conversion of legacy data to facilitate answering important scientific and regulatory questions of interest to promote public health.

ScenPro will manage the project and provide critical technical expertise in modeling, data conversions and data management. Octagon Research Solutions brings deep domain knowledge in clinical research data integration and standardization, proven data conversion and transformation methodologies and a broad capacity to support this large volume legacy data conversion project.

“This milestone project highlights the critical nature of data standards in the evaluation of safety and efficacy of new therapies. We are excited about the opportunity to leverage our expertise to help the US FDA broaden their use of data standards throughout the agency,” said Michael Gately, president of ScenPro.

“This project is illustrative of the industry’s trend toward data standardization to promote analysis and evaluation of therapies across therapeutic classes to promote public health. Octagon is pleased to be taking an active role in this critical project,” added David Evans, chief information officer of Octagon Research Solutions, Inc.

Read a related article on HealthTechZone: “Leveraging Legacy Technologies in Next-Generation Communication Networks.”


Anuradha Shukla is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.

Edited by Tammy Wolf
Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. [Free eNews Subscription]




SHARE THIS ARTICLE



FREE eNewsletter

Click here to receive your targeted Healthcare Technology Community eNewsletter.
[Subscribe Now]