CTMS Application Expands Integrated Research Administration System

CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 29, 2011-- Huron Consulting Group (NASDAQ: HURN), a leading provider of business consulting services, today announced that Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has selected its Click™ Portal software to automate clinical trials business processes, including budgeting, sponsor billing, participant tracking, and reporting. The new software will be fully integrated with Wake Forest Baptist’s existing Click-based electronic Institutional Review Board (eIRB) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (eIACUC) solutions, as well as other business systems across the institution.

“With an institutional objective to significantly grow our volume of clinical trials, it became imperative that we accelerate trial business processes while minimizing obstacles for investigators and interested research subjects and simultaneously ensuring compliance with increasingly strict guidelines on research billing practices,” said Kevin High, M.D., director, Clinical Research Resources, at Wake Forest Baptist’s Translational Science Institute. “The Click Clinical Trials Management System (CTMS) will enable us to more accurately schedule and track research visits for enrolled subjects and assure both study sponsors and patient care providers that research procedures are appropriately reimbursed. In addition, by linking to our Click eIRB for human studies oversight and other systems for tracking clinical charge code data, the Click CTMS will integrate all business information relevant to a research study, further speeding trials from startup to completion.”

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is one of the leading research universities in the southeastern United States, with more than 40 institutes and centers focused on research in areas ranging from alcohol abuse to women’s health. The medical center expects to increase its clinical trials through innovative research in promising developmental areas such as organ replacement. While Click software automation is part of the solution, to help manage this growth the Huron Life Sciences practice is also assisting Wake Forest Baptist research leadership to re-engineer specific processes, streamline information flows, provide accurate detailed budgets, and eliminate billing inconsistencies.

“We are pleased to work hand in hand with the medical center to create an integrated research administration system,” said Nick Stier, managing director, Huron Education. “Wake Forest Baptist will achieve measurable and sustained improvements for its IRB and clinical trials offices by connecting business and compliance processes. The Click CTMS will improve reporting across all areas and also reduce noncompliance risk for the institution. In short, our goal is to help ensure that research administration process execution does not impede the progress of the research itself.”

Wake Forest Baptist and many other leading research institutions use Huron’s Click Portal platform to automate a wide range of administrative and compliance processes, including those associated with IRB, Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC), Conflict of Interest (COI), grants and clinical trials.

About Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center

Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is a fully integrated academic medical center located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The institution comprises the medical education and research components of Wake Forest School of Medicine, the integrated clinical structure and consumer brand Wake Forest Baptist Health, which includes North Carolina Baptist Hospital and Brenner Children’s Hospital, the commercialization of research discoveries through the Piedmont Triad Research Park, as well as network of affiliated community based hospitals, physician practices, outpatient services and other medical facilities. Wake Forest School of Medicine is ranked among the nation’s best medical schools and is a leading national research center in fields such as regenerative medicine, cancer, neuroscience, aging, addiction and public health sciences. Wake Forest Baptist’s clinical programs are consistently ranked as among the best in the country by U.S. News & World Report.

About Click, a Huron Solution

Click Portal software is installed at leading academic medical centers and research institutions throughout North America. Huron Consulting Group acquired Click Commerce in November of 2010 to expand the Company’s solutions for the business of research within its Huron Education practice. Huron Education’s professionals have worked with 90 of the top 100 research universities in the U.S. More information can be found at www.clickcommerce.com.

About Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group helps clients in diverse industries improve performance, comply with complex regulations, reduce costs, recover from distress, leverage technology and stimulate growth. The Company teams with its clients to deliver sustainable and measurable results. Huron provides services to a wide variety of both financially sound and distressed organizations, including healthcare organizations, Fortune 500 companies, leading academic institutions, medium-sized businesses and the law firms that represent these various organizations. Learn more at www.huronconsultinggroup.com.

Source: Huron Consulting Group

Huron Consulting Group
Jennifer Frost Hennagir, 312-880-3260
jfrost-hennagir@huronconsultinggroup.com