Inventing the ePRO Industry

Steve Raymond, Ph.D., founded PHT in 1994 with a vision of collecting longitudinal data from patients that would enable scientific researchers and healthcare professionals to improve quality of life for patients around the globe. His dream became the ePRO (electronic patient reported outcomes) industry as it exists today.

The Origins of Modern ePRO

While the concept of capturing clinical data electronically from patients has existed in industry for some time, Dr. Raymond is universally recognized as the founding father of modern ePRO systems. Dr. Raymond owns 5 patents from his creation of the idea to use the web to send patient data, collected directly by a handheld device, to a central server. He came up with the concept while working as a pain researcher at Brigham and Women's Hospital. At the time, he was frustrated with the lack of real-time, high -quality information he was receiving from paper diaries. Under his leadership and guidance, PHT implemented the first-ever modern ePRO trial in 1995. This model, born out of PHT, has grown to become the industry standard as well as the commonly accepted definition of an ePRO system.

Learn More About ePRO's Origins

Have ePRO systems reached the level of Dr. Raymond's original vision? How did this model improve upon prior electronic data capture methods? Contact PHT for answers to these questions or any others you may have.