Description
Currently, when data are gathered from participants in clinical trials, these assessments typically take place in healthcare settings rather than in the context of patients’ daily lives. In addition, many assessments of physical function rely on relatively subjective outcome measures that are reported by participants or their healthcare providers. In addition to being limited in terms of their objectivity, these measures also may capture only brief “snapshots” of the participant’s functionality and/or disease burden at a given point in time.
Mobile technology offers new ways to capture objective measurements as clinical trial participants go about their daily lives by utilizing novel endpoints, defined as 1) new endpoints that have not previously been possible to assess, or 2) existing endpoints that can be measured in new and possibly better ways. These novel endpoints have the potential to provide high-quality data pertaining to outcomes that are meaningful to patients while theoretically enabling larger trials with reduced barriers to participation, thus making possible more sensitive, generalizable, and patient-centric assessments.
