tool

Clinical Trial Management System (CTMS)

Price: Free

USC’s Clinical Trial Management System, OnCore, is a jointly sponsored, web-based software system for managing clinical trials

University of Southern California (USC)
Goal: Get Help with Biostatistics and Research Design
Phase: Set Up A Study
Phase: Conduct A Study

About the tool

USC’s Clinical Trial Management System, OnCore, is a jointly sponsored, web-based software system for managing clinical trials. The CTMS is integrated with the Electronic Medical Records to streamline the process of managing clinical trials. KeckCare (Keck Medicine of USC) and KIDS (CHLA) Research Administrators, Study Coordinators, Budget Specialists, and Researchers conducting research at USC, LAC and CHLA select the OnCore platform and have worked to customize and configure the CTMS since October 2014.


Training

Onsemble
Onsemble® is OnCore’s online resource for research team users who share best practices, contribute to an ever-growing knowledge base and provide input into OnCore’s evolution. The online home for this community is Onsemble.net, which includes training videos (including those recommended below), webinars (archived and upcoming), listservs by your research team role (e.g., investigator, coordinator, administrator, regulatory) and more.

USC strongly encourages our research team members to review the self-directed OnCore training resources listed below and access many more resources available via http://www.Onsemble.net.

To sign up for free access:

  • Click the “Request an Account” link on Onsemble.net.
  • Complete your contact information and set your password. Tips:
    • Identify University of Southern California as your organization (USC, Keck, LAC, CHLA).
    • Use your @.edu email address/user name.
    • Create your own password, unique to Onsemble.
  • Check your email for your Onsemble.net registration confirmation.

FAQs

The CTMS is an online tool for managing all aspects of the clinical-trial lifecycle. This includes study participant and safety management, and electronic data capture and reporting through its core module.

Study initiation

  • Study identification
  • Proposal development*
  • Confidentiality Agreement (CDA)
  • Coverage Analysis
  • Budget
  • Ancillary services
  • Time and effort planning
  • Budget negotiations with sponsor
  • Clinical Trial Agreement (CTA)
  • Institutional Review Board Coordination (IRB)
  • Study account(s) creation and setup
  • Sponsor invoicing
  • Regulatory Documents
  • Study activation

Finance Management

  • Effort tracking
  • Clinical trials billing
  • Charge Master
  • Research Orders
  • Charge reconciliation
  • Charge capture/entry
  • Sponsor invoicing and A/R management

Study management

  • Informed consent
  • Subject recruitment
  • Subject enrollment
  • Subject scheduling
  • Biospecimen management**
  • Inventory / storage management**
  • Requisition and distribution management**
  • Data management
  • Case report form (CRF)*
  • Reportable events
  • Significant new information/findings (SNIF)
  • Protocol amendments
  • Study reporting
  • Audit and Monitoring

Study close out

  • Initiate study close out
  • Account reconciliation
  • Inactivate award account(s) in financial system
  • Maintain and submit technical reports to sponsor
  • Post-trial Audit / monitoring
  • Consistently capture and track protocol, study, administrative, and financial data needed for management of trials
  • Added transparency between study and finance teams to track study activities and payment
  • Reduce multiple isolated, informal environments for managing and tracking study data
  • Eliminate redundant/multiple software infrastructures
  • Reduce costs to manage clinical research within individual units
  • Increase the capability to provide meaningful reports and data regarding the financial status of a study to Principal Investigators
  • Improve regulatory compliance
  • Central repository for study-related information (budgeting, patient tracking, care reports) and a catalogue for materials stored in biorepositories

Researchers

  • A Principal Investigator Console displays information pertinent to PIs, including accrual and protocol status
  • Access to reports on accrual, financial status, subject safety and more
  • Review and capture subject safety information consistently across studies
  • Secures research data and allows audit logging of data modifications
  • Supports study participant recruitment through a public Web
  • Provides integrated biospecimen management for studies with sample collection (not part of initial roll out)
  • Stores and provides access to patient registry data (not part of initial roll out)

Research Staff

  • Web accessibility to protocol and subject information, including consent forms, visit schedule and electronic case report forms
  • Integrations with other enterprise-wide systems lead to reduced duplicate data entry and increased data quality
  • Automated email notifications to support communication and efficient workflows, such as, including IRB expiration alerts, IRB notifications, protocol and subject status
  • Provides a calendar view of when your research participants are scheduled for visits
  • Access can be limited to approved consent forms
  • Additional recruitment capabilities through public display of study information

Administrative Directors

  • Access to key reports on financials, cycle times, staff workload and other key metrics
  • Better understand your clinical trial research portfolio
  • Ensure standard procedures are being followed consistently
  • Provide the use of a single tool to adhere to a well-defined set of common processes
  • Allows trends and opportunities for improvement to be identified through metrics tracking and reporting

Regulatory Administrators

  • Tracks submissions, communications and actions for various regulatory bodies including scientific review committees, FDA, IRB and data safety monitoring committees
  • Generates automated notification alerts prior to IRB expiration
  • Generates automated notifications to inform the research team of key status changes as you enter regulatory tracking information

Finance Staff

  • Links study procedures to a single rate list provided by our primary clinical providers and labs
  • Provides financial projections for sponsor billing based on the linked study calendar and negotiated study budget
  • Offers an accurate and timely view of what items are ready to be invoiced to a sponsor
  • Tracks invoices and receivables

The Public

  • Added support for obtaining research results faster
  • Provides a searchable view of accurate and up-to-date open study information by you or your care provider via the Web

If your trial involves billable services (i.e. requires Medicare Coverage Analysis) at Keck Medicine or CHLA. Examples of billable services include:

  • Labs that are processed by the clinical system, including labs that are drawn in research facilities and processed by the hospital
  • Procedures administered by hospital staff that are not part of usual care (example MRI or CT Scan)
  • Dispensing fees

If you are unsure if a Medicare Coverage Analysis is required for your study, the Clinical Trials Unit (Keck), Clinical Investigator Support Office (Norris Cancer Center), Clinical Research Support Office (CHLA) can help you determine if your study should use CTMS.

Any investigator conducting industry or non-industry clinical research trials contracted through University of Southern California (including Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles) is preapproved to utilize the system. To sign up for an account or request training, please email OnCoreSupport@med.usc.edu.

No. The CTMS is viewed as a common-good enterprise system at USC, CHLA, and the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

At USC, the CTMS is further planned to be integrated with the iSTAR (IRB system) and Cerner (PowerTrials) electronic health record systems. Additional integrations are being reviewed including the Kuali Financial System and PeopleSoft (CHLA). Studies utilizing the CTMS will be exempt from tracking in True2, True, and Iris.

OnCore’s base system includes standard reports that are accessible to users in order track and maintain all components of clinical trial management. The base system also comes with DT4 Tables for Cancer Center reporting. USC has the ability to provide custom reports that are developed from our clinical research informatics team as requested. Trials utilizing electronic data capture within the CTMS are also able to export all EDC data needed for analysis in SAS or excel formats.

Yes. In addition to providing biospecimen and registry management modules, the core Enterprise OnCore component for clinical-trial management was enhanced by the vendor beyond what was developed for cancer centers to allow each specialty to have a uniquely configured “library” and its own workflows. This enhancement allows multiple specialties to utilize the same system across the institution.


History of the CTMS project

After an analysis of infrastructure gaps for clinical research, the university identified the need for an Enterprise Clinical Trial Management System. This is a joint and collaborative effort of the USC Provost/Office of Research, the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Keck Medicine of USC and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.


Partners and people involved

University of Southern California (USC)

  • Vice President of Research, Ishwar K Puri, PhD
  • Vice Dean for Research, Keck Medicine of USC; Director, Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Thomas A. Buchanan, MD
  • Director of Clinical Research Informatics, Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute, Daniella Meeker, PhD
  • Director of Clinical Trials Office, Keck School of Medicine, Melissa Archer, JD

Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA)

  • Primary Sponsor: Vice President of Research, Jodi Ogden
  • Executive Sponsor: Michele D. Kipke
  • Executive Director, Research Administration, Karen Niemeier
  • Chief Information Office, Steve Garski

Project Team

  • Nancy Yi, USC CTMS Specialist
  • Youssef Helmy, CHLA CTMS Specialist 
  • Leslie Chung, OnCore Manager



Log in to CTMS

Log in to CTMS

Contact information

Leslie Chung

View Email

To Request OnCore Access, Email: 

OnCoreSupport@med.usc.edu

NIH Funding Acknowledgment: Important - All publications resulting from the utilization of SC CTSI resources are required to credit the SC CTSI grant by including the NIH funding acknowledgment and must comply with the NIH Public Access Policy.