The importance of patient-centric support in boosting clinical trial patient recruitment and retention

Bringing a new treatment to market is a lengthy and expensive process, so the ability to streamline the drug development process is vital to ensure patient access to new, innovative therapies. However, this isn’t always easy; we know the majority of clinical trials still fail to meet their enrolment deadlines and many face being discontinued, either because of poor recruitment or low retention rates.

With so much at stake for both patients and sponsors, our first-of-its-kind Navigator service has been developed to boost recruitment and retention – managing the influx of digital referrals at enrolment stage and providing consistent engagement with participants throughout a study’s lifetime.

Navigator is a global patient-facing service designed around patients and their families and caregivers. We know how important it is that patients have someone they can go to when they have questions or concerns, or need a listening ear; around 75% of global consumers want greater human interaction in the future, even as technology progresses.

Our Navigator service uses real people that study participants can speak to or email directly, no matter what their issue or question. Every Navigator has a background in clinical research and is a trained Mental Health First Aider. Our worldwide network means patients receive local in-country support wherever they live from people who understand the local healthcare landscape and are native speakers of the local language.

Together, this influences how heard, valued and respected patients, and their families and caregivers feel throughout their clinical trial journey. This ‘human touch’ helps build trust, a key linchpin to successful clinical trial patient recruitment and retention, but this is challenging for sites due to a heavy workload burden and constraints on time and resources.

There are two main ways that Navigators can support sites – managing the prescreening process for digital referrals and providing a patient and caregiver support service to aid retention. Sponsors can commission one or both of these depending on need.

In recent years, digital marketing, such as social media and online advertising, has been increasingly used for finding and enrolling patients into clinical research. While there is currently no major consensus on whether social media is more effective as a clinical trial patient recruitment tool compared with other, more traditional methods, there is no denying the ability of digital to reach patient populations more quickly and easily than other methods.

However, the influx of patient referrals that these digital-based techniques typically generate brings challenges; many are likely to be low-quality, and follow-up can take time and resources that sites often do not have.

With Innovative Trials’ Navigator service, the referral follow-up process is optimised. Once digital referrals are received, we contact each potential participant within two business days and take them through a prescreening questionnaire. The Navigator will also book a screening visit if required, and issue appointment reminders to promote compliance. If the patient is deemed suitable for the trial, their details will be shared with the research site, thereby ensuring that sites only receive the highest quality referrals.

The retention of clinical trial participants is crucial for the credibility of clinical research, but many trials fail due to a low retention rate. Research shows the quality of the relationship developed between research staff and the study participant is a key factor in retention, and personalised support has also shown a positive effect on retention rates.

We recognise that many sites do not have the time or resources to execute such dedicated support. Our Navigators remove this burden from site staff for the duration of the study, even if it lasts for several years. This ensures participants have a consistent point of contact and receive regular check-ins and personalised support, thereby keeping them engaged throughout the process and minimising drop-out rates.

This support is available in different forms depending on a sponsor’s requirements:

1. Participants are given a phone number and email address for the study’s dedicated Navigator team, which they can use when they need some form of support.
2. Navigators are authorised to contact participants for pre-agreed tasks, such as technological support, appointment reminders and follow-up calls.
3. The two approaches are combined to offer a full patient-facing support service.
   

Innovative Trials’ Navigator service can supercharge your studies by accelerating clinical trial enrolment and boosting retention through direct patient-facing support. Find out more at www.innovativetrials.com/navigator

References are available on request.