Friday, July 14, 2017

TASI Trial launched this week


This week we launched another study – the TASI Study.

This is a small, low budget pilot trial that will test the potential overall benefit of the TightRope versus syndesmotic screw fixation for ankle injuries. You can read more about it on the Spinnaker website »

The trial has been running for over 12 months using the classic envelope system for randomisation. Patients were previously randomised into this multi-centre trial by telephoning a central coordinator. This placed a significant burden on the coordinator to always be available by mobile phone. In one easily implemented package our randomisation module has removed all that difficulty and put randomising patients in the hands of the local registrars.

With only 160 patients in the pilot there was not the budget for our full Spinnaker package. Our stand alone Randomisation Module is useful and surprisingly affordable package for pilot studies like the TASI Trial.

Tuesday, July 04, 2017

Your database on steroids


In the space of a week our sys ops have upgraded our clinical trial server in Sydney (Wombat) and added another server to cope with the growth in Spiral and the popularity of our Spinnaker Software.

The server upgrade means Spinnaker just got a whole lot quicker and access to your database is faster. We doubled the random access memory (RAM) on Wombat and added another processor. Monitoring of the server should show some significant gains in speed but already we can see a huge difference in the response time … and you will to.

The new server (Platypus) is also in Sydney but at another location to give us more flexibility about where we place your database. Platypus has the PLUS Trial on it, ready to enrol 8,800 patients in what must be one of the biggest ICU trials in Australasia.

Platypus is part of a long term plan to provide a smarter service and a more agile response. Under consideration is how we respond to server overloads, how quickly and smoothly can we move a single study instance of Spinnaker from one server to another and maintain 100% data integrity. Another consideration is alternative options for key functions, like randomisation and unblinding, during unavoidable downtime.

At Spiral we are all committed to providing a fast, agile response from the database and from our support team to you.
Hope you enjoy the ride with Spinnaker, on your faster database.