Recently I’ve observed a growing trend in clinical research concerning patient recruitment. It seems that CROs are utilizing new tactics and are helping sites enroll more patients by opening up a new position in the field. The new position calls for “clinical trial educators.” This is a first in the industry and something I haven’t seen done before. These educators will be employed by CROs to help the sites they’ve selected recruit more patients. I’m not going to name any names, but believe me when I say that the CRO that informed me of this shift is reliable and I can guarantee that pretty soon other CROs will follow suit. The position was probably established recently due to the fact that many sites oversell their recruitment capabilities during site selection visits while underestimating the complexity of the protocol and inclusion/exclusion criteria. As a result, these sites soon discover that they struggle with low and slow enrollment when the study starts. This does not bode well with the sponsors which depend on CROs to select sites that will recruit an adequate number of patients. It is not enough for CROs to simply encourage or train sites on methods to up their recruitment; sponsors want CROs to get their hands dirty and actually get involved. And so the way that they’ve decided to do this is by employing clinical trial educators. These educators will help sites recruit more patients by serving as a link between the research sites and their local community. They will work with the sites to set up luncheons with doctors at their offices or at local residential facilities where potential study participants reside. Although they are not actively recruiting patients, they are educating the community about clinical research and letting potential patients know about some of the clinical trials in their area. Hopefully this approach will prove to be effective in increasing recruitment rates.
