Digital Pen and Paper technology from Swedish company Anoto speeds up the capture of clinical trial data by converting handwritten notes into keystrokes, avoiding time-consuming manual data entry.
The digital pen looks like a ballpoint pen. A tiny infrared camera at its tip tracks its movements relative to a patent-protected grey dot pattern printed on the form, recording and storing what is being written. When researchers have finished gathering data, they place the digital pen into a USB docking station to synchronise the pen with backend IT systems. Alternatively, data can be transmitted via a Bluetooth-enabled mobile phone. As a result, clinical trial data is available immediately for processing and analysis.
The pen can store up to 50 A4 size pages of handwritten data.
The company says the biggest advantage of the technology is that handwritten information can be digitised without changing work routines, and that a high level of data accuracy can be achieved.
Research has shown that data entry error rates are close to zero and timesavings of up to 60% can be achieved.
Users continue to fill in forms with a pen, retaining the advantages of paper, such as its ease of use, the ability to archive information quickly and its original content, which is often needed for legal purposes. Likewise, users do not have to be trained to use tablet PCs, PDAs or scanners.
The Anoto Group operates through a global partner network focused on efficient capture, transmission and storage of data within different business segments.
Anoto has around 110 employees based in Lund, (Sweden), Boston and Tokyo.