Clinical Trial Enrollment: How Hospitals Can Overcome 3 Big Challenges

While clinical trials provide the opportunity to bring novel treatments to patients in need, enrolling patients in clinical trials can be a difficult process for hospitals and other research organizations.

More than 10% of clinical trial sites never successfully enroll even a single patient, and more than two-thirds fail to meet enrollment targets.

Why is clinical trial enrollment so tough? Here we break down the top three challenges, and explore how clinical trial sites can overcome them.

Challenge 1: Traditional screening methods take time

Most hospitals rely on manual screening methods to identify and enroll patients in clinical trials, and these processes can be tedious, time consuming, and expensive. As staff shortages and burnout continue to increase within hospitals, finding ways to improve efficiency across the organization is increasingly important.

To learn about how Sharp Healthcare is optimizing its clinical trial enrollment process, read this case study.

Challenge 2: Traditional screening methods can lead to missed enrollment opportunities

Keeping track of complex inclusion and exclusion criteria while working fast enough to meet demanding trial timelines can be very difficult for clinical trial coordinators. Some trials are time-sensitive and require patients to be enrolled quickly once identified — so working fast to identify eligible patients is key.

Traditional manual screening processes also increase the likelihood that eligible patients could be missed, especially when the inclusion and exclusion criteria for a trial is complex.

Challenge 3: Traditional screening methods are costly

As noted, enrolling patients in clinical trials is often time-consuming and inefficient for staff members. That, in turn, translates to higher labor costs. With a more efficient process, clinical trial researchers could spend less time searching for patients and more time screening and enrolling qualified candidates, as well as take on additional work in other areas.

Another cost associated with traditional screening methods is that of potential missed revenue. If the trial fails to meet clinical trial enrollment targets, the hospital misses out on participation and the associated revenue benefits.

A Better Way

VigiLanz Research can help hospitals greatly enhance their recruitment processes. The technology, which integrates with live data inside a hospital’s EHR, leverages study-specific inclusion and exclusion criteria to automatically screen all patients across a hospital network in real time, and provides automated alerts and notifications to team members when it identifies appropriate candidates.

From there, coordinators can track eligibility status, run timely reports, and manage the recruitment process in a customized worklist. The solution also provides enterprise-level reporting that coordinators and leaders can use to easily gain insights on patients screened for eligibility.

A fast, accurate, real-time patient identification solution not only benefits clinical researchers, but helps ensure that every eligible patient inside a hospital system who qualifies for a clinical study is given the opportunity to participate.

To learn more about how VigiLanz can help with patient recruitment strategies for clinical research, visit https://vigilanz.com/research/.