Community Based Medical Camps

CRD has used arthritis camps as one of the sources for protocol driven standardized data collection. For the first time perhaps anywhere in the World, camps have been used to screen patients for eligibility and enrollment into clinical drug trials. The camp methodology has been socioeconomically restructured to create a novel standard operating procedure (SOP) for simultaneously providing free service to patients and gather disease related data. To enable good attendance and community coverage (with focus on weaker community sections), camps are announced much in advance through several means (newspapers, handouts, word of mouth, etc) and several camps are generally conducted in quick succession over weekends and holidays. Over 8000 patients of arthritis have benefited from these camps in urban and rural Pune.