When you think about what makes or breaks a clinical trial, the first things that spring to mind might be recruitment, protocols, or data monitoring. But there’s something much quieter, often overlooked, that has a huge impact on data quality: the humble Case Report Form (CRF).

Bugs can appear at any stage: in requirements, where gaps or ambiguity later reveal themselves; in design, where complexity can cause unexpected behaviour; in development, where even the best coder might overlook a detail; in testing, when features interact in surprising ways; and in deployment, where real-world use always uncovers something new. After thirty years in this field, I can say with confidence that every project has bugs. What matters is not their existence, but how you deal with them.

Data residency isn’t a checkbox; it’s at the core of ethics, regulation, and community trust. At Spiral, we see New Zealand as a powerful training ground for solving these challenges well. The standards we apply in Aotearoa translate directly to our work in Australia, the UK, the EU, and beyond.