Current Challenges in Clinical Trial Patient Recruitment and Enrollment

The biggest benefit of Decentralized Clinical Trials (DCT) is the opportunity to enhance the patient experience. Still, the process is riddled with the current challenges in clinical trial patient recruitment and enrollment. The key problem here is not that patients are unengaged, but rather the vendor products are not always particularly engaging. The solution lies in undertaking a patient-first approach.

To deliver a superior patient experience and derive maximum benefit from this model of conducting trials, enterprises and vendors must be aware of clinical trial enrollment challenges that might pose major hindrances. A closer look at the top challenges will help businesses develop effective measures to improve patient engagement and retention.

The entire remote model has reduced in-person interactions. Insufficient communication from sites and sponsors often leads to the current challenges in clinical trial patient recruitment and enrollment. The human touch, an important psychological aspect in healthcare, goes missing in this model. Added to this is the burden of learning about new products and technologies.

Patients have very limited digital literacy and may find it extremely difficult to operate a new sensor, a smartphone, or an application. Vendors are struggling to develop robust training and support programs, while enterprise buyers are more concerned about patient education capabilities and post-implementation support in their sourcing criteria.

All these factors create a general sense of discomfort and disengagement among patients, creating more clinical trial enrollment challenges. These issues defeat the principal benefit that vendors and enterprises expect from a decentralized clinical trial solution.

Though the solution to the current challenges in clinical trial patient recruitment and enrollment is technology and connected systems, the focus should be on improving the patient experience and building the future towards a patient-intuitive smart decentralized clinical trial solution suite.