MediciGlobal

There is a gross misconception that once study sites are selected, patients should be readily available for the clinical trial and at no cost. No other industry operates under the assumption that one of its foundational services should be available for free and the research community is no exception.  In order to adapt to the industry’s evolving landscape, it’s important to recognize that patient recruitment is profoundly market-driven. 

Competition for patients is at an all time high while trial timelines are, on average, shrinking.  With exciting new advancements and data-communications channels at our disposal, cultivating specific patient communities in advance of demand is easier and more necessary than ever.  Without the flexibility to adapt to changing market forces and capitalize on emerging technologies, patient recruitment timelines will suffer.

Accordingly, customized strategies that can accommodate the push-and-pull nature of the commercial side of the business are called for.  By pushing patients along the recruitment pipeline directly to the research center, integrated ‘customer service’ teams effectively pull them through the screening process and shepherd them to consent and on to randomization. 

Effective patient recruitment is crucial to bridge the gap between our current system, which is fueled by demand, and the future of industry which calls for an up to date supply of eligible patients that can anticipate upcoming need.  Often, a surplus of available patients is necessary in order to satisfy study demands.  With a plethora of eligibility factors to fulfill, a diverse database of current patients is essential to successful recruitment.  From inclusion/exclusion criteria to patient reluctance, disqualification is a reality for innumerable patients during the screening process.  Even issues such as logistical concerns, complacency and lifestyle can greatly narrow the pool of eligible subjects.  Empowering sites to draw from a larger pool of patients can spell the difference between failure and success.

Often, the industry is unaware that it is responsible for inadvertently causing research sites to fail.  These facilities are often not provided the proper patient recruitment tools to deliver successful results.  Most sites are selected with considerable weight given to their science background and perceived access to patients. However, limited resources, smaller grants and increased workload have impacted the time consuming communications initiatives that accompany research studies and the follow through required to ‘pull’ patients through the screening pipeline.  With limited market expertise to find patients outside the research site and limited resources to mine the patient referrals, it’s no wonder that many research sites find themselves in a straightjacket of the industry’s own making.
By strengthening partnerships, the effectiveness of patient recruitment will continue to grow.  Specialty recruitment companies can bridge the gap between patient advocacy and research sites in a way that has not yet been achieved on a mass scale.  Armed with a unique depth of knowledge on which to build integrated marketing strategies and communication models, these organizations are crucial to the industry’s future.  Because new outreach tools like social marketing require diligent daily management, sites are often unable to keep up with the necessary technical know-how and in-depth marketing expertise.  In the struggle between offline and online media, patient recruitment is poised to harness the power of the internet like never before; using specialized online marketing expertise not found within study sites, an expertise that requires sponsors to pay to play.

Recruitment efforts are a vital component of the pipeline that effectively ushers individuals through this multi-step process.  From study protocols to risk management, patient recruitment plays a central role in maximizing resources and delivering reliable results.  As we stand at the intersection of patient recruitment, study management and emerging science, our industry has the unique opportunity to influence the way clinical research is conducted in this country and beyond, but it requires investment in patient recruitment to yield results.  In the competitive market place of marketing clinical trials to patients, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and well placed investment pays off.