Application of intranet and internet techniques in conducting clinical trials

Clinical trials require the availability of forms and information concerning procedures at different times and at a number of places in the hospital. By representing this information using web based tools it becomes possible to organize the information in a much simpler way by linking corresponding elements. By storing this information on a web-server within the hospital protected by a firewall against access from outside, the information becomes available to everybody with a username and password for that web-server. With the help of a Perl script patient information collected in previous parts of the trial can be recalled and used during further investigations, for instance the settings of X-ray equipment to allow for identical follow-up registrations. Multi-center trials in which information is passing the firewall require additional protection to guarantee data security while keeping the firewall intact.