2017 ICT4D Conference

While there have been great outcomes in getting huge participant turnouts to participate in clinical trials, most times the study staff are not too familiar with the trial participants (as participant count increases) so they rely on written documents for the identification and verification of participants which at times is time consuming and can be compromised or impersonated to gain benefits associated around the study. Such occurrences also affect the data and outcomes of the trial negatively. The employment of biometric technology within a prime-boost clinical trial ensures the authenticity of the participants during their visits and the credibility of participants' data that will enhance the accuracy and trust of the trial as a whole. The biometric technology is the first point of contact of participants' details capture and recording. The information on the biometric system is then synchronized to another system that requires the information for research management, medical data systems as in the case of EBOVAC Salone trial.

The Mobile Technology for Community Health (MOTECH) Platform is an open source enterprise software package that connects popular mHealth technologies to unlock new outcomes toward strengthening health systems. The platform is being used for the EBOVAC-Salone trial to help ensure compliance with the prime-boost vaccination regimen with an interface that allows field workers to book an appointment with the volunteers for their first clinic visit for screening and sends reminders to the clinical trial participants whenever they are scheduled for a vaccination and scheduled visit as required by the trial and support the communications and reminders surrounding the Ebola vaccine trial. After utilization of the MOTECH in phase one of the trial, the level one technical support faced a number of challenges which are mainly linked to the other systems that MOTECH needs to synchronize with for quality data flow and utilization.