Telematic support for collaborative doctors' networks in clinical research

We reported previously on the setting up of collaborative networks of doctors in private practice to conduct clinical studies jointly. These networks presently encompass more than 500 doctors with the largest group being general practitioners (>400 members). We report here on a pilot project in the context of a phase II study to provide telematic support to a group of about 10 private doctors to achieve two main objectives: first, to set up a patient registry of an epidemiologically important disease, in this case chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and, secondly, to improve further the quality the conduct of the clinical study, especially with regard to source data verification.