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Enhancing Clinical Trial Recruitment with Contact Centre Collaborations

Clinical Trial Recruitment

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Developing new medicines, treatments and medical devices is an exciting process that comes with a great deal of planning and strategy. In addition, with a highly regulated industry, maintaining compliance and integrity and upholding ethical standards are essential for a successful clinical research outcome. With these considerations in mind, let’s examine one process component: clinical trial recruitment.

Clinical trial recruitment can be challenging, with potential risks that affect the trial’s duration, budget, ultimately impacting its outcome. Additionally, monitoring retention rates is crucial as participants’ drop-outs can disrupt the entire process. To ensure successful trial completion, it is essential to identify and address potential risks and barriers. One effective strategy is outsourcing recruitment to an experienced contact centre provider. This approach helps reach the target audience and identify eligible participants, optimises budgets and frees up resources to focus on critical trial components.

Let’s investigate how contact centre collaboration with the clinical trial provider can increase eligible and dedicated participants numbers.

The contact centre recruitment team follows the trial scope, including the target population, length of recruitment, and which service(s) will be managed by the team. Services available from contact centres may include appointment scheduling, data collection & entry, follow-up calls, quality assurance and reporting. Contact centre services can also reduce the burden of trial sites in managing the high volume of unqualified calls and general enquiries, allowing the provider team to focus more on the trial’s clinical aspects.

An experienced contact centre with a highly trained and experienced clinical trial recruitment team can also often provide flexible support beyond recruitment. This support includes providing additional staff with expertise in ICH-GCP / GPM / GLP and other research-related matters if needed. The recruiters also have the technical skills to adapt and utilise various Participant Database CRMs (Customer Relationship Management software) and CTMS (Clinical Trial Management systems).

To maximise the chances of successful participant recruitment, the contact centre team must consider multiple aspects, such as obtaining informed consent, fostering a culture of education, & awareness, utilising communication effectively, convenience, creating a positive experience and data analysis.

  • Ethical Responsibility

    To ensure ethical responsibility during recruitment, all applicable standards and guidelines must be followed and adhered to. Furthermore, participants must have pertinent information related to the study, have the competence to make an informed decision, and receive a thorough explanation of the research and disclosure of any potential risks involved. Finally, in the event of changes that may affect the informed consent, participants must be made aware of them and allowed to reconsent.

  • Fostering a Culture of Education and Awareness

    By fostering a culture of education & awareness, a wider participant audience is reached to improve participation. This culture includes outlining the scope and trial information, inclusive placebos and other relevant elements of the trial, and responding to any questions that participants/guardians/carers and medical professionals may have.
    • Clear, Respectful & Inclusive Communication: Using a clear, respectful & inclusive communication style ensures the treatment of participants is with respect, patience & dignity and that their rights and privacy are protected. They also fully understand and know the clinical trial’s scientific concepts and their role. This approach also helps reduce fear and uncertainty barriers while recruiting participants. Communication is focused on interactions between the recruiters & participants and between the recruiter team & provider through designated primary contacts.

  • Barriers & Inconveniences

    During the clinical trial recruitment process, recruiters should consider adequate strategies to address any barriers or inconveniences such as travel & time disclosed by the participants or identified by the representative during the interaction. These strategies should be convenient and implemented to make participants feel heard, potentially leading to a positive retention rate.

  • Positive Experiences

    Participants should be treated with respect and dignity, ensuring a positive and memorable experience. This approach can lead to increased referrals and publicity for the clinical trial. Recruiters should provide participants with regular updates on research outcomes to demonstrate the significance of participant’s contributions. Even if a participant does not meet the criteria for a particular trial, recruiters can make them feel valued for wanting to be part of the trial and inform them about other potential trials they can participate in.

  • Data Analysis & Continuous Improvement

    Regularly conducted data analysis ensures valuable insight into how the clinical trial recruitment process is tracking along and any necessary modifications to the clinical trials to increase participation and retention rates. This analysis also includes maintaining records of potential and current participants and feedback from participants and contact centre recruiters to attract a wider pool of participants. By collaborating with experienced clinical trial contact centers, participant recruitment can reach new heights.

 

RESOURCE: Clinical Trial Recruitment Guide

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