Time is of the essence

How long should it take for a coordinator to complete a study visit?  A loaded question for sure, because the answer depends on the number of tasks and procedures to be completed. For example a screening visit may easily take 2+ hours because of all the initial paperwork, while a follow vaccine visit may be only 20-30 minutes because it only may require a blood draw and brief physical exam.  A significant issue among managers and coordinators is how to maximize the coordinator's time so that down time is maximized to ensure that as many participants can be seen as possible during the day.

For some coordinators, study visits will be conducted one step at a time with no overlap.  This is not the right way to take advantage of the way a clinical trial visit is set up.  Coordinators should be aware of the procedures required at each visit and set up the visit to allow for the most of use a minimal amount of time.  Clinical research study visits often have significant down time built into the protocols.  For example subjects are often required to be resting for at least 5-10 minutes prior to taking vital signs.  Instead of just leaving the patient by his/herself, a coordinator should be copying a consent, reviewing medical records, preparing a lab kit, or entering demographic info in an ECG machine.  This will allow for productive use of that 5-10 minutes  because as small a period of time as it is, a coordinator's day is busy and 5-10 minutes can go a long way.  Here's a few more examples of utilizing down time appropriately:

-Reviewing a new participant's intake form while consent is being read, so any questions/concerns can be identified ahead of time
-Filling out source headers while a subject is completing questionnaires
-Taking temperature/scheduling an appointment while the subject is applying pressure to the site of a blood draw
-Presenting the participant's information/demographics to an investigator (prior to a physical) while questionnaires are being completed or a urine sample is being given

Proactive utilization of time of a critical aspect of a coordinator's job and learning how to do this is part of the maturation of an inexperienced coordinator into an efficient, vital member of a clinical research team.