Xcellerate Investigator Portal: A New Web-Based Tool for Online Delivery of Central Laboratory Data, Reports, and Communications to Clinical Sites

Abstract

Covance Drug Development produces more than 55 million test results via its central laboratory services, requiring the delivery of more than 10 million reports annually to investigators at 35,000 sites in 89 countries. Historically, most of these data were delivered via fax or electronic data transfers in delimited text or SAS transport file format. Here, we present a new web portal that allows secure online delivery of laboratory results, reports, manuals, and training materials, and enables collaboration with investigational sites through alerts, announcements, and communications. By leveraging a three-tier architecture composed of preexisting data warehouses augmented with an application-specific relational database to store configuration data and materialized views for performance optimizations, a RESTful web application programming interface (API), and a browser-based single-page application for user access, the system offers greatly improved capabilities and user experience without requiring any changes to the underlying acquisition systems and data stores. Following a 3-month controlled rollout with 6,500 users at early-adopter sites, the Xcellerate Investigator Portal was deployed to all 240,000 of Covance’s Central Laboratory Services’ existing users, gaining widespread acceptance and pointing to significant benefits in productivity, convenience, and user experience.