A novel open-source web-based platform promoting collaboration of healthcare professionals and biostatisticians: A design science approach

Abstract

Collaboration among clinicians and statisticians is relatively poor, with many cases leading to poor quality research, reflected by low level of evidence studies published in the literature, thus affecting the overall quality of healthcare. We have developed a novel open-source web-based platform aiming in reinforcing the clinician–statistician relationship, using an iterative design research process by involving all end-users. Evaluation of this platform by healthcare professionals and biostatisticians was highly positive, as we first identified the pitfalls of their relationship and overcame them through the use of this platform. We are hoping that this will strengthen the clinician–statistician relationship in the short term and ultimately improve the quality of research and hence the quality of healthcare in the long term.

Keywords:

• clinician
• collaboration
• design science research
• user-centred
• open source
• statisticians
• quality of research
• relationship

Acknowledgements

All efforts were taken to ensure compliance with the Data Protection Act and good Clinical and Research Practice guidelines (The Good Research Practice Guidelines of the UK Medical Research Council have also been included in the platform available for download [3,23]). Only the design team had access to the contents of the platform. Each user was requested to “Agree with the terms and conditions of the platform, including that no patient details would be allowed to be uploaded or included at the website.

Declaration of interest:

This project received no internal or external funding. The authors, BiostatIT Ltd [23] and Data Consulting Services [18] developed the software with their own resources and time.