46th Annual DIA Annual Meeting Update
Jun 23, 2010
by Liz Moench
Patient recruitment and retention was a major theme at the 46th DIA Annual Meeting in Washington, (June 16-18) both in the educational sessions and on the show floor. The conference featured at least 11 panels exploring the topic, ranging from social media, accelerating the process, who should be accountable for patient enrollment, to defining realistic recruitment feasibility, and best practices for reaching and supporting clinical trial participants in the digital age.
There were several notable take aways.
1. A general consensus that many biopharmaceutical clinical teams believe that they should not pay for recruitment services. The belief is that once the site is hired it’s their job to find the patients.
COMMENT: Imagine if we applied this same kind of thinking to marketing prescription medicines. If we took this approach we would eliminate the sales force and leave doctors to prescribe and pharmacists to dispense, and we know that does not occur on its own! We need to market clinical trials to patients just as sales reps market their products to doctors. Both require an investment, and with careful planning a nice return as well.
2. That patient advocacy groups are important to the recruitment process and in emerging countries.
COMMENT: We have certainly seen this, but a word of caution too. Culturally certain regions such as South America may still be some years behind the effective use of this approach. In this region we have observed that while patients may seek out the information, they are less likely to act on it. Instead they will rely on the doctor to guide them.
3. That social media is the hottest item in patient recruitment, and it is effective for patient feasibility, reaching diverse audiences, driving down per patient costs, and provides important market data for recruitment analysis.
COMMENT: This is indeed the case. Web analytics and defined communications channels allow greater precision in reaching specific patient audiences than ever before. Patient-centric patient recruitment requires careful upfront planning and eMarketing and social media combined make this possible in rapid time.
I welcome you thoughts, comments and observations.
2 Comments
On Monday, June 28th 2010, at 05:18am, Sjouke said:
Liz,
I appreciate (and subscribe) your strong advocacy of using social media tools for higher patient participation in clinical trials. Having read your LinkedIn Profile, I assume you also subscribe a more active role of patients.
What is your opinion sofar regarding the point of view of Pharmaceticals (I mean their ‘level of anxiety’ on opening up two-way communication with patients)?
On Monday, June 28th 2010, at 09:43am, Liz Moench said:
I do subscribe to a more active role of patients in the clinical trials process. Study success for patient recruitment and retention is centered on the patient. A patient-centric view requires recruitment programs to incorporate patient feedback and insight during the planning phase of recruitment and continue this throughout the study. This can be achieved through active yet controlled dialogue. The key words here are ‘controlled dialogue’. What I mean by this is that essentially these are private conversations. Clinical trials portals such as yours can provide sponsors with a method for patient feedback that is private and not displayed publicly on a social networking site (SNS). Conversations with patients are key to successful recruitment and retention management. They alert us to study issues that only patients would see or experience. What is less certain is how FDA will rule on patient conversations that are public, and there are many sponsors’ legal teams who are nervous about the lack of control of what might be stated publicly by a patient on a SNS; this is especially the case if the information posted by a patient is untrue, unfounded, or requires further investigation.
Social networking sites allow us to achieve our goals; controlled postings through advertising are possible. But importantly, patient communications is about listening, and SNSs allows us to eavesdrop on patient conversations and gain further insight. We will continue to safely include the voice of patients within our current regulatory framework.
