the iDAM approach

"Even the advent of eDC has not shifted the process [Clinical Data Management] in a dramatic way." - from a DIA Session Title, September 2006.

The terminology "intelligent Data Acquisition and Management" (iDAM) has been coined by Cmed to more accurately describe the single software system Cmed has designed and built to unify the whole clinical trial data ecosystem. Timaeus is the name Cmed has given to our iDAM system.

Cmed have set about producing the paradigm shift in CDM that leading industry professionals know is overdue.

Cmed recognized that the increasing number of distinct systems and the wide range of data types stored (information, status, financial, clinical data, metadata) may overcomplicate and obscure the true objective of clinical data acquisition and management — which is to collect, check, store, review and analyze clinical data from multiple sources accurately, efficiently and quickly.

Cmed anticipated the sweeping paradigm shift in the consumer world and society to inexpensive, wireless, lightweight, almost disposable hardware such as cell phones, solid state music and video hard disk players, personal data devices, lightweight laptop computers and the like. This led to the realization that the underlying technologies used to engineer Cmed's iDAM system should be able to take maximal advantage of the emerging solid state mobile electronics, as well as supporting the use of the worldwide internet (web). Also, with its strong Pharmaceutical industry background, Cmed understood the needs of sponsor/CRO users and the importance of avoiding workarounds, minimising unnecessary data transfers to and from other systems but enabling critical data transfers — for example, to data warehouses. Timaeus includes full, complete Clinical Data Management System functionality. Cmed also decided on a fundamental principle, namely that the primary end user was the Investigator site and therefore Timaeus must be designed with their needs, wants and wishes paramount. (See investigator site wishes.)