#PositiveVibes - Clean Up the Data

By John R. Nocero & Nicole M. Palmer

The VIBE: Don't sweep it under the rug; clean the data

John: Nicole and I talk a lot about changes to organizational cultures that can impact their research structure. I believe integrity of a research team's character is tied to integrity of their study data. I don’t think that people go to work intentionally to do bad work, but people get lazy the longer they are in this game. And this causes them to get sloppy. Data integrity issues are costly mistakes, especially once a clinical trial is underway. I believe everyone is responsible for ensuring data integrity – the PI, research team, administrators, sponsor, institution, etc, especially true for the longest running and most expensive projects, or projects that have changed coordinators multiple times. I wonder if companies work their hardest to ensure their process improvement skills related to data are current. I get that you have a process, an SOP, but is it on a shelf and no one knows it exists? There is a strong difference between having a process and an outdated process and that shows if your data is not clean.

Nicole: John, you nailed it! Data integrity is tied to integrity of data. That’s why we believe to hire for character and not skill. You can’t train someone to be nice, have good moral character, disciplined, organized, motivated or honest. You can train them the necessary skills to do the job. Just because someone is experienced in the field, doesn’t mean that they are good at their job. When you are looking for someone to come on board to your team, you need to think about if they will fit in with the culture. What do we do when an employee gets lazy and does the bare minimum? I like to hold people accountable for their work. The expectations must be clear, do they have the resources to do their job, do they ask for help when they need it and how do they perceive feedback. Next, let’s think about the consequences. What are our options? Retrain or reward. Retraining cost money. Monetary rewards cost money and it is the band aid fix. Johnny- you talk about keeping the SOPs up to date and current. I look at it from the trickle-down effect. It has to come from above. We are all role models. You can have a great SOP but if no one is following it or implementing it, what good is that? Hire for character, train the skills, be a role model and your data integrity will not be compromised. Recipe for success.