User Acceptance Testing (UAT): The One Test Every Data Manager Should Try To Fail

By OpenClinica

Years of college and training. Professional certification. Memorizing what seems like an entire periodic table of data management acronyms: CDISC, CDM, CRF, eCRF, EDC, SOP, UAT. Tests. More tests. Clinical data managers spend their careers ensuring the accuracy and integrity of clinical trial data. It’s a bit ironic, then, that perhaps the most important CDM test is one that we are supposed to fail.

User Acceptance Testing (UAT) is the process of testing CDM software. UAT is the last step along the path to a live study launch. It’s the 11:30 AM seminar speaker that is the only thing between you and lunch. The proximity of UAT to study launch is unfortunate. Our collective mindset at this stage screams, “Can’t we just get on with it?” The necessity of UAT, however, cannot be overstated. Done well, two weeks of UAT will save the clinical data manager months of headaches in post-collection data cleaning.

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