Clinical Trial Management System Design and Data Structure

One of the industry areas where web and mobile technologies bestow impactful benefits for both researchers and users is the pharmaceutical sector, particularly in streamlining clinical trials, enhancing patient engagement, and improving data collection and analysis. This paper surveys the existing academic landscape regarding the challenges in clinical trial management. We provide insights into the practical implications of different database organizational strategies and their effect on system performance, particularly during intensive operations such as data exports and complex queries. Our discussion extends to the digitalization of clinical trial processes based on our experiences, though specifics of the drugs tested are not disclosed. We present an analysis of two different database design approaches – Conventional and Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV). Our goal is to assess how these architectures support the flexibility required for the rapid adaptation and deployment of new functionalities, a necessity given the short durations typical of clinical trials. This analysis aims to guide the optimization of Clinical Trial Management Systems (CTMS) for better operational efficiency in managing clinical trials.