Clinical Studies Workflow

Challenge

Cutest The Skin Specialists conducts clinical studies for cosmetic products. They take care of the entire process, from finding study participants and supervising the clinical studies to analyzing and processing the results for the cosmetics manufacturers.

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Before Cutest The Skin Specialists modernized its clinical studies workflow with the help of skybow two years ago, it was completely paper-based as this is the traditional industry standard. There were numerous paper forms that had to be filled out by employees or study participants.

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This caused various problems:

• Study participants sometimes filled out the forms inconsistently, rendering the data less useful.
• Joining information together from paper sources was highly inefficient.
• It was difficult to provide the necessary information to all the relevant people.
• With many clinical studies running at the same time, it was impossible to keep track of everything and have an overview.

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Why was skybow chosen?

In their search for a tool that would enable them to digitize the clinical studies workflow, they focused on various criteria:
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• They wanted to be able to carry out the digitization themselves without any programming knowledge or in-depth technical expertise.
• A software that they were already using should be used. SharePoint was perfect for this, because of built-in auditing and versioning capabilities.
• It must be possible to set up a separate, self-sufficient solution for each clinical studies within a very short space of time.
• Several SharePoint sites should be managed easily and clearly.

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The Cutest The Skin Specialists team therefore tested two different variants: Power Apps and skybow.

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However, Power Apps was far too complex to use, had opaque licensing and did not offer all of the required options. The decision for the clinical studies workflow was therefore made in favor of skybow after just a few days.

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"The skybow Solution Studio convinced me immediately with its countless powerful features. Especially the possibility of having a development and a production environment makes digitization much easier for us. Thanks to the template function, we can set up a new site with all the necessary forms and workflows for new clinical studies workflows within hours.", Andrew Kirby (Cutest The Skin Specialists)

How Cutest The Skin Specialists solved it

With the clinical studies workflow, the team at Custest The Skin Specialists manages to cover the entire process of new studies. A new SharePoint site is created for each new clinical studies. This ensures that the data from the various studies cannot be mixed up. Here is a brief description of how the clinical studies workflows were set up in skybow Solution Studio:

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Templates‍

To set up a new clinical studies workflow for a new study as quickly and efficiently as possible, the team uses skybow's template function. A template can be easily created from an existing skybow solution. This can then be used as a basis for new solutions. Only the details of the new study then need to be adapted. As a result, each clinical studies workflow is customized to the requirements of the study and still goes live within a maximum of 2 days.

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Testing in the skybow development environment‍

The clinical studies workflows process confidential data and must deliver reliable results. It's therefore essential to be able to test new clinical studies workflows extensively with your own data before the deployment. The skybow Solution Studio offers the best possibilities for this. All automations, forms and results can be tested extensively.

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"The separation between the development and production environment is a great advantage for us. This clear separation makes administration, updates and setting up new clinical studies workflows much easier for us.", Andrew Kirby (Cutest The Skin Specialists)

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SharePoint Forms with validations, calculated fields and lookup fields‍

When selecting people to take part in a study, a considerable amount of information has to be recorded. This is partly done by the participants themselves, but also by the team. Before the digitization of the clinical studies workflow, this collection of information was extremely error-prone. This was solved by the numerous functions that skybow offers in conjunction with SharePoint Forms and errors were completely eliminated.

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The team initially uses validations in the forms for the clinical studies workflows. This means that errors are pointed out as soon as they are entered. Where possible, fields in the forms are calculated directly. This means that no errors can occur during input. Lookup fields also support this. All these different field types and field functions can be easily and quickly implemented in skybow Solution Studio without any programming knowledge.

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The great graphic design option of the forms in the skybow Solution Studio are a great help too. The ability to create tabs or use a multi-column layout makes the forms much clearer and easier to fill out. These can be easily created by drag&drop with a what-you-see-is-what-you-get editor. Refreshable rich text fields are also frequently used here. These adapt to the data input. They help to support the person completing the form even better in the the clinical studies workflow.

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Automated workflows‍

In the clinical studies workflow, numerous action buttons are used on pages, in the command bar of lists and libraries or on forms. These action buttons trigger various automated workflows. These take over numerous manual tasks and make the administration of clinical studies considerably easier. For example, it is possible to check whether a test subject has already taken part in another study. E-mails or Microsoft Teams messages with reminders or information can be sent automatically. These and many other automation actions were built without coding in the skybow Action Builder.

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The Solution: Clinical Studies Workflow

The first clinical studies workflow had to be set up by the team from The Cutest The Skin Specialists. This then served as the basis for the template that is now used for setting up each new clinical study.

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"The support from skybow is exceptional. The team is always on hand and finds a good solution for every problem. I have never experienced such good support anywhere else.", Andrew Kirby (Custest The Skin Specialists)

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This has made the clinical studies workflow an efficient, cost-effective and easy-to-use solution for digitizing any clinical study. The solution now covers various functions:

• The screening of study participants
• Participants can document their findings digitally
• Recording of the results of the studies
• Clinical data can be documented
• Results are evaluated
• Information is sent to stakeholders

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This results in significantly fewer errors throughout the process. The team's manual tasks have been reduced to a minimum. The processes have become faster and more efficient. As a result, more clinical studies can now be conducted. All team members can access the information anytime and anywhere. This has also improved the mood and cohesion within the team.  

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The innovative Clinical Studies Workflow from Cutest The Skin Specialists sets new standards for efficiency and accuracy in clinical studies. This skybow solution based on SharePoint impressively demonstrates the great effect of digitising manual processes and finally putting an end to the paper chaos.

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‍Thanks to skybow, processes can be modernised very quickly, without programming knowledge and very cost-effectively. The solution can be customized to your own processes. In this way, skybow combines the best of both worlds: Solutions are quick to implement and cost-effective (like standard tools), but can still be completely customized to your own requirements (like an individual development).