Patients participating in clinical trials receive benefits in addition to potentially receiving breakthrough drugs and devices. Trial enrollees also receive state of the art care and additional monitoring. However, extra monitoring does not come without additional burdens. Patients must typically make additional trips to a research site compared to traditional care, incurring costs from transportation, parking, meals, and may need to take time off work, and subsequent childcare.
A staggering 30% of patients drop out of clinical studies prematurely. Inconvenient study locations, sometimes inconsistent communication from sites to patients, and overly onerous time commitments, all play a role in attrition; however, these non-medical obstacles can be overcome.
Patient and Site Burden in Enrollment and Retention
Clinical research sites are faced with the recruitment and enrollment of participants, in addition to providing care. During initial discussions, a plethora of materials are provided to prospective participants, with informed consent presented upon enrollment. While the informed consent documentation details the requirements and costs for participating in a trial, it can be an overwhelming amount of information and often not provided in layman’s terms.
Sites are tasked with educating patients, helping to ensure that they remain enrolled despite the burdens of participating in study amid everyday life.
Solutions to Help: Arming Research Sites with Education and Technology
Thankfully, sponsors, CROs, and sites are increasingly adopting a patient centric approach when conducting clinical trials.
It is crucial that patients are educated regarding the expectations and burdens shouldered during a study. To help sponsors and CROs deliver on their site-centric approach, and provide sites with tools, Greenphire recently partnered with CISCRP to develop a new educational brochure entitled “A Guide to Costs and Reimbursements and Payments in Clinical Trials.” This IRB-approved brochure is available in English and Spanish, virtually and printed, as a resource to ensure that patients have all necessary information at hand when considering participation in a clinical trial.
Reviewed by panels of patients, this brochure ensures that important information about involvement in clinical trials, is valuable and written in a user-friendly manner. You can view and order copies on the CISCRP website.
While educated patients are engaged patients, the patients that do not have to worry about out-of-pocket costs and logistics when participating in a clinical research study, are engaged patients as well. Greenphire continues to expand our suite of patient convenience solutions, enabling sites, sponsors and CROs to deliver on their missions, investigating new treatments, devices, and medicines with a compassionate touch. Our ClinCard solution has been used by nearly three million patients around the world. Recent enhancements include virtual payment capabilities, a rideshare integration with Lyft and ePRO/eCOA data triggered payments which improve data collection compliance.
Additionally, Greenphire’s expert travel solution, ConneX, further removes patient and site burden by facilitating local and long-distance logistics planning.
Our solutions have continued to gain global adoption. In fact, in a 2020 Greenphire survey, sponsors and CROs cited that implementing patient convenience solutions are more important now than they were prior to COVID-19. Recognizing patient burden and technology solutions was clearly a lesson learned in 2020.
Take the Next Step
The synergy between patient education and in-study engagement solutions can provide further clarity and convenience for clinical trial participants, ultimately improving patient retention.
If you are looking to improve patient and site satisfaction, we invite you leverage our new Patient Costs and Reimbursements brochure and learn more about Greenphire – your partner to create smarter trials from beginning to end.
