About St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne
St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne (SVHM) is a major teaching, research, and tertiary referral hospital and the flagship research site of St Vincent's Health Australia (SVHA), the nation's largest not-for-profit health and aged care provider. SVHM runs one of Australia's most active research programs, spanning cardiology, cancer, haematology and mental health.
Managing research ethics and governance at this scale, from ethics submission and governance approvals through to post-approval reporting requires more than fragmented or manual processes. It demands a unified, enterprise-grade platform that supports compliance, visibility, and efficiency while enabling research teams to deliver high-quality outcomes across an increasingly complex clinical research environment.
The challenge
SVHM supported a large and growing portfolio of clinical research. However, research administration lacked a reliable way to consistently identify active studies, monitor their status or categorise research activity. In the absence of a dedicated platform, research administration relied on disconnected standalone tools. Clinical research data was largely collected on paper and managed across multiple spreadsheets, and essential documentation was stored in disparate folders on shared hospital drives.
This fragmented operating model placed considerable strain on the research administration staff, reducing the time available for core research oversight and governance activities. With the National Clinical Trials Governance Framework (NCTGF) introducing new national standards for clinical trial governance, SVHM faced an urgent need to modernise its trial governance and adopt an integrated, enterprise-grade platform capable of supporting scale, compliance, and operational efficiency.
The solution
OmniStar provided SVHM with an enterprise-grade ethics and governance management platform, known internally as SAGE, replacing fragmented manual paper-based processes with a structured system spanning the full research ethics and governance lifecycle.
SmartForms technology standardised the capture and management of research data, transitioning paper-based submission processes into structured, intelligent digital forms across studies. Researchers could submit ethics applications and governance documentation electronically, consolidating previously disconnected spreadsheets into a single system and enabling configurable workflows supporting ethics and governance administration.
Data security, sovereignty, and organisational control were foundational design requirements. All OmniStar data was hosted exclusively on Australian soil using Information Security Registered Assessors Program (IRAP)-compliant Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure, delivered and supported entirely in-house, with no subcontractors involved. Intellectual property developed specifically for SVHM, including SmartForms, templates and dashboards was assigned to SVHM, protecting its investment and ensuring long-term ownership of its research processes.
The solution was delivered in seven months and went live in time to meet the NCTGF compliance deadline.
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Managing research ethics and governance across a busy hospital environment comes with significant administrative complexity. OmniStar gave us a centralised, electronic platform to manage our submissions and documentation, moving us away from paper-based processes and giving our team a single place to access and manage research records. The reduction in time spent locating and managing physical documents has made a noticeable difference to how efficiently our team operates day to day.
Sue Ngeow Clinical Trials Liaison Officer, St Vincent's Hospital MelbourneThe outcome
The implementation of OmniStar provided SVHM a centralised platform for managing research ethics and governance, replacing fragmented paper-based processes with a structured electronic system for submissions, approvals and research documentation.
By consolidating ethics submissions and governance documentation into a single electronic system, SVHM's research administration team gained a reliable, centralised repository for research records. Since implementation, OmniStar has supported more than 2,500 ethics and governance submissions across SVHM. The shift from paper-based processes to a structured digital platform reduced the administrative burden of managing physical documents, improved accessibility of records across the team, and brought greater consistency and accountability to research governance operations.
Within the first month of go-live, researchers and administrators were actively using the platform, accelerating adoption across the organisation. OmniStar dashboards provided SVHM leadership with improved visibility across ethics submissions and governance activities, supporting more consistent oversight and audit-ready compliance reporting.
By meeting NCTGF requirements on schedule, SVHM strengthened its research governance capability while establishing a scalable digital foundation to support future research growth.
As our research program continues to grow, having the right infrastructure in place to support governance and compliance is essential. OmniStar gave us a modern, centralised platform improving how our team manages submissions, maintains records, and meets regulatory requirements. It has laid a strong foundation for how we manage research at SVHM going forward.
A/Prof Megan Robertson Director of Research, St Vincent's Hospital MelbourneWhy you should try OmniStar
Unified platform
Ethics submission and governance documentation consolidated into a single enterprise-grade platform, providing researchers, administrators and governance teams with one central location for research records.
Standardisation
Consistent, structured ethics and governance processes established across SVHM's research operations, replacing disconnected, manual practices with a uniform, repeatable approach to research administration.
Operational efficiency
Intelligent SmartForms and structured submission workflows reduce the time and effort associated with manual document handling, freeing research administration staff to focus on higher-value governance activities.
Streamlined researcher experience
A single online portal for submitting ethics and governance applications, tracking progress, and managing post-approval obligations, reducing friction for researchers and administrators across SVHM.
Governance and compliance
Structured, audit-ready workflows supporting SVHM's ethics and governance operations, with version control, digital approvals, and comprehensive audit trails supporting internal and external accountability requirements.
Enterprise grade security
All research data hosted exclusively on Australian soil within IRAP-compliant AWS infrastructure, meeting SVHM's privacy, security, and data sovereignty requirements.
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