Electronic Pens

Electronic pens and other forms of mobile data entry have gained recent prominence in clinical data collection. The reasons have been quite obvious paper based forms in combination with electronic data entry (so called hybrid approach) resulted in double data entry and significant error rate. This opened up the scenario for data to entered and stored in a single instance in a field based setting.

Currently four different technology options are available :

1. Use a Tablet PC (cuts you a cheque for 2500 USD) and a software for CRF design
2. Use a Paper on Pen (costs around 150 USD, check logitech io pen)
3. Use PDA digitizer, basically you write on paper and that information is digitized real-time
4. Use a PDA directly, works if you have a small CRF and limited number of fields

When we did a pilot in our ongoing clinical study it looked not-so-practical. Our trial subjects (we have 50-70 year olds) often forgot to record in this electronic diaries and there was no way for them to go back retrospectively (which you could do in a regular paper diary). However electronic means of recording data were acceptable, and to reduce cost on our trial subjects we had to "lease" them out for the duration of the trial.