title: Managing clinical trials.
abstract: Managing clinical trials, of whatever size and complexity, requires efficient trial management. Trials fail because tried and tested systems handed down through apprenticeships have not been documented, evaluated or published to guide new trialists starting out in this important field. For the past three decades, trialists have invented and reinvented the trial management wheel. We suggest that to improve the successful, timely delivery of important clinical trials for patient benefit, it is time to produce standard trial management guidelines and develop robust methods of evaluation.
authors.affiliation: National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit CTU, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. barbara.farrell@npeu.ox.ac.uk
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Farrell
authors.forename: Sara
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kenyon
authors.forename: Haleema
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Shakur
mesh_terms: D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards*; D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D017598:Efficiency, Organizational; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D011643:Publishing