Medidata, a New York-based global provider of cloud-based solutions for clinical research in life sciences, has formed a strategic collaboration with Garmin International. By integrating Garmin's vívofit activity tracker with the Medidata Clinical Cloud, Medidata is enabling its life sciences customers to make use of mobile health (mHealth) devices with the potential to enhance patient engagement, data quality and operational efficiencies in clinical trials.

Designed to be worn on a person's wrist 24/7, Garmin's vívofit measures steps taken, distance, calories burned and hours slept. The water-resistant device—which displays fitness data through its always-on LCD display—is being used by Medidata to capture patient data in clinical trials. The company selected the vívofit because of the ease of use provided by its year-long battery life, which can improve the convenience and speed associated with capturing direct-from-patient data and, as such, has the potential to increase compliance among study participants in a clinical trial setting.

"Integrating the vívofit with the Medidata platform is part of our ongoing efforts to unify mHealth devices with cloud-based technologies in a clinical trial setting," said Glen de Vries, Medidata's president. “We believe these efforts will result in better data, enhanced patient experiences and more efficient trials."

Medidata has built cloud-based infrastructure that enables life sciences companies to explore the use of mHealth technologies in clinical research. This infrastructure gathers data from devices worn by patients and integrates it with other traditional clinical data, including labs, vital signs, medical history and adverse events. In doing so, the infrastructure provides life sciences companies with the ability to conduct sophisticated analysis on trial performance.

Medidata currently is working with top life sciences organizations to explore the feasibility of using the vívofit in clinical trials. The data is pulled from the Garmin activity tracker in 15-minute increments and then analyzed to evaluate its connection with traditional clinical measures and determine whether it can provide better insight into patient health status or response to therapy.