Keep your Guard Up

Two years ago Quintiles launched iGuard, a personalized medication monitoring service for patients that doubles as a clinical trial recruitment tool.  The multinational CRO has reported (as reported by PharmaTimes) that the service has over 2 million enrollees (Quintiles claims this is more than Twitter got  in its first two years...a strange claim that to me is meaningless...like comparing apples and oranges...but that's another story) and that iGuard is even helping to reshape the clinical trial enrollment landscape. 

The method by which this is allegedly happening is that patients are emailed information about a clinical trial and they either opt-in or they don't.  Simple enough, but the other way that this service seems to be assisting trial recruitment is through patient feedback on new advertising schemes, compliance promoting measures, and retention tools.  Doesn't that sound weird that the largest CRO in the world is making a big deal out of this when involving potential trial participants in the clinical trial process seems obvious?  It has long been a concern of mine when central recruiting services present advertising and retention items to sites that clearly aren't effective, yet they are required by the sponsor to be utilized (some recruiting services, in my opinion, use more smoke and mirrors than actual results when selling their product to sponsors...but again, that's another story). 

This system put together by Quintiles is a better example of how trial recruitment and retention should be researched and developed.  After all, the participants are the ones that we are trying to bring in, so why not ask them what would catch their eye or what would encourage them to remain in a trial?  Unfortunately because iGuard is managed by Quintiles, the results of such research remains the property of CRO and will likely not be disclosed to anybody who asks about it.  Research sites, though, can take this plan and come up with some ideas of their own to get potential participants involved in the recruitment process.  Here's a few ideas off the top of my head:

-Send out a poll included in an email newsletter asking about what recruitment ideas work best

-Have participants fill out a survey asking: why they participate?  why they remain in the study?  what would make them more likely to complete a trial rather than drop out?  less likely?

-Interview willing participants on their entire trial experience, from recruitment to completion

-Be visible in the community.  No one can argue against the importance of branding in advertising, so get out there and make a name for yourself.