There is no central repository where a company or an individual can easily access this vital information for a specific country.
When we launched D Anderson & Company several years ago our mission statement included a commitment to revolutionize patient recruitment. We believed in that so strongly that it became our tag line which was incorporated with our company logo and that concept was often a driving force in the decisions we made. To that end, we challenged ourselves to search for new and innovative ways to find and recruit patients in order to be a successful company. From an industry perspective we wanted to contribute to the growth of the patient recruitment enterprise by demonstrating through our deeds and actions that we were thought leaders in this field.
As I take stock of where we are as a company today, I think it is fair to say that we have made progress and continue to evaluate new approaches to patient recruitment and retention. We remain committed to trying revolutionary ideas in an effort to look for different ways to be more efficient, to work smarter, and to produce the solutions and results our clients expect and demand.
Patient recruitment and retention for the clinical research industry is a needed and valuable service offering and there are a few trends I've observed and believe will play a key role in the future. They include the following:
*Understanding global patient recruitment solutions
*The importance of understanding the public's perceptions of clinical trials
*The value of education
and training for clinical research staff regarding patient recruitment and retention strategies
*Effective, fully-integrated marketing and creative services to support patient recruitment and retention strategies
Understanding global patient recruitment solutions
D Anderson & Company has worked on patient recruitment and retention programs in 33 countries. Having had the opportunity to speak and present to audiences around the world, I've witnessed first-hand the keen interest and enthusiasm for learning more about patient recruitment and retention. The trend of working in other countries as a patient recruitment provider has gained more and more momentum as the need to find willing clinical trial participants continues to grow.
Within the last year, I've had the opportunity to lead a clinical delegation to China, speak at a conference in Hyderabad, India, and participate in other conferences and events throughout Europe. This has been an eye-opening experience in terms of seeing these countries and gaining a better understanding of the clinical research environments there. It has become very clear to me that in order to be successful, clinical research professionals and patient recruitment providers must become more adept at knowing and understanding the rules, guidelines, and customs for each country they are conducting clinical trials in.
While researching this topic I discovered that there is no central repository where a company or an individual can easily access this vital information for a specific country. With respect to this, I have been working on a new book that will address many of these important international issues and it will be available in January, 2007. The book is titled, "International Patient Recruitment and Retention: Regulatory Guidelines, Customs and Practices." It will include information on 23 countries and will also include a chapter on training as well as international case studies. The book will be available on our website at www.dandersoncompany.com.
Importance of understanding the public's perceptions
As clinical research trials and patient recruitment will continue to expand around the world it will be extremely important to have a good grasp of what potential subjects are thinking, what their attitudes and perceptions of clinical trials are and what will motivate them to participate in the future.
Well over a year ago we embarked on a research project in the U.S. to better understand what motivates people to participate or not participate in clinical research studies in order to improve our recruitment and retention efforts. The initial data after interviewing nearly 700 people reveals six primary.
Professional patient recruitment and retention efforts have become commonplace in the industry today. Sponsors and Investigators require excellence and in-depth knowledge from providers of these services no matter where the clinical research study is being conducted attitudinalclusters that have been categorized as follows:
*Physician Influenced - people who are highly influenced by a physician's
recommendations
*Newly Diagnosed - people with long-term of life-threatening disease
*Advanced Disease - people in more advanced stages of their disease and are looking for hope
*Health Advocates - people who are motivated by prevention and cutting edge technology and treatment
*Underinsured - people who believe they are underinsured and are motivated by free tests and care
*Risk Averse - people whose current medical treatment is working and don't want to experiment with something else
We are encouraged by what we've learned with this research thus far and plan to continue this project with various ethnic and other diverse patient population groups. We plan to announce the results some time in 2007 and hope it will benefit everyone involved with patient recruitment issues.Value of training for professionals on recruitment and retention strategies.
Another aspect of our business that there is a demand for is training. We have created customized training programs for CRAs and CRCs that cover many topics from clarifying study goals and sponsor expectations, to assessing site resources, to understanding diverse ethnic and cultural needs and how these things effect patient recruitment and retention strategies.
There is such an emphasis placed on recruiting patients, however, patient recruitment is only part of the equation and goes hand-in-hand with patient retention. There are many valuable insights and practices that have been proven to work and help insure a successful clinical trial outcome that many clinical research professionals are unaware of. Patient retention is just one of the many training workshop topics that we offer and we're proud to report that in many cases, the results are remarkable when measuring a decrease in patient attrition after we've conducted a patient retention workshop.
Effective marketing and creative services
Marketing and creative service offerings will of course always be in demand when it comes to patient recruitment for clinical trials. These initiatives must be executed correctly and across all marketing platforms in order to maximize the opportunity of reaching your target audience with a message that is compelling to them. As media options continue to evolve it is important to take advantage of this and to develop fully-integrated marketing campaigns that reach potential subjects through various channels including print, broadcast, the Internet, direct marketing, community outreach initiatives and other grass roots efforts.
It is also very important to engage clinical research professionals working at the sites to ensure they have the proper communication tools to help recruit and retain patients. These materials may consist of patient recruitment kits, care giver support items, physician referral letters and other items to generate awareness of the study and to keep it top-of-mind among this group.
Continuing the revolution
Professional patient recruitment and retention efforts have become commonplace in the industry today. Sponsors and Investigators require excellence and in-depth knowledge from providers of these services no matter where the clinical research study is being conducted. Sponsors and patient recruitment service providers that embrace new ideas and techniques and look for ways to improve these efforts will be recognized and heralded for continuing to revolutionize the industry.
(The author is president and CEO of D. L. Anderson International, Inc., parent company to subsidiary D. Anderson & Company, a patient recruitment and retention service provider for the clinical trials industry. In 2006 she was named as one of the "100 Most Inspiring People" in the life sciences industry by PharmaVOICEmagazine)