SCORR Marketing, a global health science marketing and communications firm, and Chesapeake IRB, a technology-enabled independent institutional review board (IRB) serving the clinical research industry, will present “Does ‘Big Data’ for Enhanced Recruiting Invade Patient Confidentiality?” and “The Internet of Things and Clinical Research: Privacy, Security and Ethical Aspects” at the Drug Information Association (DIA) Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

Lea Studer, senior vice president of marketing communications at SCORR, will unveil results of a recent survey conducted with CenterWatch about how people feel about Big Data being used to enhance recruiting for clinical trials and if it invades patient confidentiality.

“Poor recruitment is the leading cause of failure in clinical trials, so we wanted to gather information on how patients feel about their personal information being used and what the industry can be doing to improve enrollment,” said Studer.

“In addition to the survey, we gathered input from key industry leaders including Rick Malcolm, former CEO at Acurian and current partner at Bingham Associates; Joan Chambers, chief operating officer at CenterWatch; Karen Wall, deputy general counsel at Chiltern; John Potthoff, chief executive officer at Elligo Health Research; Neil Ferguson, chief commercial officer at INC Research; and Dawn Sauro, president of Development Innovations at Sarah Cannon Research Institute. These executives provided an all-encompassing perspective of how “Big Data” is currently being used in clinical research and the challenges and opportunities it provides,” Studer said. “This group will also participate in a panel discussion following the presentation.”

Ellen Kelso, executive director of strategic development at Chesapeake IRB, will discuss the benefits of the Internet of Things (IoT) in clinical research and the complexities to its adoption.

“IoT is a vision of the future where connected devices interact directly with other devices and database data without any help,” said Kelso. “Enabling secure, remote, real-time access to patient data is becoming increasingly critical, and IoT has become a meaningful opportunity for pharmaceutical companies to lower costs and accelerate clinical trials.”

The presentations will be Wednesday, June 29, at 4 p.m. in the Pennsylvania Convention Center, room 108B. After the event, Studer’s presentation will be available for download at scorrmarketing.com.