The Electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA) Consortium (formerly the Electronic Patient-Reported Outcome [ePRO] Consortium) was established by Critical Path Institute (C-Path) in 2011. Along with C-Path, the members of the eCOA Consortium are firms that provide electronic data collection technologies and services for capturing patient-reported outcome (PRO) and other clinical outcome assessment (COA) data in clinical trials.
About
The mission of the eCOA Consortium is to advance the science of clinical trial endpoint assessment by collaboratively supporting and conducting research, designing and delivering educational opportunities, and developing and disseminating best practice recommendations for electronic collection of clinical outcome data.
The eCOA Consortium provides a pre-competitive environment in which a critical mass of experts can collaborate to generate measurement equivalence data, develop specification documents and data standards, and provide guidance on methodological considerations related to eCOA applications. All of these activities are aimed at enhancing the quality, practicality, and acceptability of electronic capture of clinical trial endpoint data. The eCOA Consortium works closely with C-Path’s PRO Consortium to make the PRO instruments emerging from its therapeutic area working groups available in multiple data collection formats. The overarching aim is to enhance public health by optimizing the value of PRO data in medical product evaluation and clinical decision making.
C-Path’s Role
C-Path’s role in the eCOA Consortium is to serve as a recognized and respected neutral third party that provides overall administrative support, operational oversight, as well as technical and scientific expertise to support Consortium-driven projects. Working with the eCOA Consortium participants, C-Path will facilitate the development and publication of scientific articles, educational resources, and supporting materials arising from the projects undertaken by the eCOA Consortium.