The Hidden Cost of Outdated Clinical Reference Data – and How to Eliminate It

Executive summary

• Outdated site and investigator data slows trial execution, frustrates sites, and contributes to costly delays – potentially up to $40,000 per day.
• Veeva OpenData Clinical provides access to 360,000+ investigators and 185,000+ sites across 80+ countries, sourced from public records and continuously curated by Veeva data stewards.
• Veeva Connections extends the value of OpenData Clinical across clinical operations workflows, improves visibility, and standardizes reference data.

The invisible cost of dirty reference data

Clinical reference data degrades rapidly as physician affiliations, site names, and addresses change with career moves, life events, and health system consolidations. Internal teams rarely have the bandwidth to maintain this information continuously, leaving clinical teams to work with stale, unverified records.

Staff waste valuable time chasing updated contact details and resolving duplicate profiles instead of focusing on strategic trial decisions. Duplicate profiles can also lead sponsors to send redundant feasibility questionnaires to the same investigator, frustrating site staff and damaging sponsor relationships.

“We have home-grown tools for data cleaning but I don't trust them because they cannot handle the variability in data structure between studies. Data sources have differences in date formatting, extra spaces in an output, column naming... They can differ by source and by study. There is too much variation so we stick with Excel." – Senior Clinical Data Specialist, Global CRO

A single source of truth for clinical reference data

The answer is not more manual cleanup. It's a continuously curated, global data foundation that keeps clinical reference data current as it changes. Veeva OpenData Clinical provides a verified directory of investigators and institutional sites. Data is sourced from public records and data change requests, with Veeva data stewards reviewing submissions before they are added to the database. Data is updated daily and available directly in Veeva Clinical applications or through a standalone user interface. Each record is also assigned a “Veeva ID,” enabling consistent identification and synchronization across Veeva Clinical, Medical, and Commercial systems.

Reliable site and investigator data for efficient trials

With continuously curated reference data and a comprehensive view of sites and investigators, OpenData Clinical helps teams improve visibility, strengthen site relationships, and accelerate trial execution. Benefits include:

• Consistent, verified data at scale: A global directory maintained by dedicated data curators ensures investigator credentials, affiliations, and site details remain complete and current.
• Continuous updates and data quality controls: Users can flag missing or incorrect information directly within their systems. Each request routes to the curation team for validation and updates, helping keep data accurate over time.
• Operational efficiency and staff focus: Teams can shift their attention from administrative cleanup to strategic activities such as governance, inspection readiness, and AI-enabled decision-making.

The power of native ecosystem connectivity

Native integration across Veeva Clinical Operations applications extends the value of clean reference data throughout the trial lifecycle. Instead of maintaining separate site and investigator records across systems, teams can use a common data foundation to connect workflows, reduce duplication, and improve operational visibility.

Targeted reference data built for clinical operations

OpenData Clinical is validated against regulatory registries, protocols, and official health authority findings. This ensures clinical development teams operate exclusively with validated, compliant site and investigator profiles tailored specifically to trial execution. Unlike broad HCP and HCO datasets, OpenData Clinical focuses specifically on the investigators and sites relevant to clinical research and trial execution.

OpenData Clinical: designed to evolve with your trials

Clinical research is constantly changing – and reference data needs to keep pace. OpenData Clinical updates its database as industry needs evolve, with continuous curation and active maintenance, helping the database grow in both size and accuracy over time. Teams gain access to an expanding global data foundation without disrupting daily workflows or requiring manual software installations. Feedback from research teams also helps improve how data is organized and shared, making it easier for companies to run smoother clinical trials.

Contact the Veeva team to see how a single source of truth for clinical trial reference data can reduce operational bottlenecks and reduce hidden costs.