The eCF EDC Hosting Team has released the final White Paper documenting best practices for establishing controls and operational procedures that facilitate compliance with evolving regulatory expectations for Electronic Data Capture in Clinical Trials using Service Providers (e.g. EMA Reflection Paper and ICH GCP Addendum). The eCF has engaged with regulators (including the EMA GCP IWG and FDA) and industry stakeholders in developing the documents.

The White Paper focuses on web/cloud based EDC utilizing service providers and the delivery of hosting or application management services in a manner that prevents exclusive sponsor control over site entered data. The concept of an investigator “zone of control” is described to assist the ongoing governance of data by respective sites. Such control is facilitated via continuous investigator access to data; use of independent third parties (the i3P); an appropriate documentation framework and task delegation/control. The eCF proposal is not mutually exclusive of other methods of meeting regulatory expectations.