The Effects of Shaded Areas of Case Report Forms on Facsimile Scanning Times
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THE EFFECTS OF SHADED AREAS OF CASE REPORT FORMS ON FACSIMILE SCANNING TIMES NATHANIEL LIM,AS, BA Data Management Associate, Case Report Forms Designer, Department of Clinical Data and Programming Support, Roche Bioscience, Palo Alto, California
Investigators conducting a clinical trial may be asked to send large quantities of case report forms to the sponsor via facsimile, which can be very time consuming. How quickly a printed page feeds through a facsimile machine was tested using a case report form with 16 different shaded boxes, three facsimile machines, and two printers. How do shaded boxes on a form affect the scanning time? The darkest and the lightest shading took the shortest amount of time, the medium shading the longest. Since printers, copiers, and facsimile machines can vary, an actual case report form(s)from a patient binder should be faxed to determine scanning time. Key Words: Case report form; Clinical trial; Facsimile; Shading
INTRODUCTION
Another concern is how ink on a page potentially slows down the scanning portion of a CRF. Shaded areas on CRFs are occasionally necessary to prevent the writer from filling in certain areas, thus preventing discrepancies. The intent of this experiment was to discover if shading, which darkens the image of the CRF, and what kind of shading, actually slows down the scanning process.
THE NUMBER OF CASE report forms (CRFs) can run into the thousands when conducting a clinical trial, and getting the information from a study site to the sponsor in a complete and timely manner is important for efficient data clean-up and analysis. Although the facsimile of CRFs has been used to speed up the process of transporting information, a study coordinator must monitor the CRFs as they are being scanned through the facsimile machine. It is not always enough for someone to place a stack of papers in the facsimile machine, dial the number, press the start key, and walk away. Problems such as jammed papers, overlapping pages, noisy telephone lines, and time zone differences can require the study coordinator to tediously watch the machine to ensure that all pages go through.
MATERIALS AND METHODS Test 1-Description The CRFs were given the different default shading options available from Adobe FrameMaker 5.0@(Figure 1) and were all on 8 . 5 ” ~11” size paper. (Note: Single X and Slash are not default shading options in FrameMaker.) Only black ink was used. Fake data were typed in to simulate a filled out CRF (Figure 2). The name of each shading option was written in the subject number box at the top. Everything else on the CRFs was the same.
Reprint address: Nathaniel Lim, AS, BA, Roche Bioscience, 3401 Hillview Avenue, Palo Alto, California 94304-1397. E-mail: [email protected].
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FIGURE 1. Four examples of the different shading options used on report form.
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