Using Patient-centered Technology To Improve Recruitment And Retention

Sponsors of clinical research must increasingly focus on improving patient engagement in order to meet many of today’s research challenges. Promising disruptions are already under way that could define new models for patient recruitment and retention.

In a time when drug development success is becoming scarcer and more expensive, the industry is looking everywhere it can for new, innovative approaches to improving health. Meeting recruitment goals is one of the biggest challenges for traditional clinical research. Less than one-third of people who come in for a screening end up completing a clinical trial.1 Thinking in a more patient-centric manner can help is in recruiting patients. A fundamental idea behind patient-centered research is to “amplify the patient’s role in the research process.”2 Employing new ways to engage patients and physicians while increasing their level of knowledge and trust can improve the sponsor’s ability to meet recruitment goals.