A computerized recall system for clinical trials

A major difficulty facing investigators involved in clinical studies is ensuring the timely follow-up of patients involved in the investigations. Two microcomputer programs are described that create a follow-up calendar for each subject, list patients due to appear for any given month, and generate printouts of subjects who have missed key follow-up appointments. These programs were formulated using dBASE II (Ashton Tate, California), a widely used data base management package suitable for International Business Machines-compatible microcomputers. The programming concept used in formulating these programs can be adapted to most other data base management software systems. These programs are currently enhancing the follow-up of patients enrolled in a prospective ophthalmic surgical protocol and are potentially useful to any investigator involved in prospective studies who has access to a microcomputer.