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Home » Why is there such inefficiency in site selection?

Why is there such inefficiency in site selection?

December 15, 2016
CenterWatch Staff

This question is often asked about an industry deeply root­ed in paper-based, spreadsheet tools for clinical trial conduct. Study teams have continued to rely on these older tools and relation­ships with principal investigators that have developed over time to select sites, building an institu­tional knowledge about specific sites based on previous studies.

While these methods seem logi­cal, they lack verification, trans­parency and are slow, taking 3.2 months, on average, to go through the site selection process. Unfortu­nately, institutional knowledge is frequently dated and siloed within departments, and may not be rel­evant to the therapeutic area un­der investigation. Moreover, study teams are blinded to problems in­herent with this approach—name­ly, it limits opportunities to engage with new sites that could be more effective than those familiar to the study team.

For a typical multicenter study, 30% of sites selected are new, mean­ing they would not appear in ex­isting spreadsheets, thereby un­dermining the value of the older approach. With the increasing complexity of clinical trials, con­tinued reliance on older methods has resulted in various industry ini­tiatives designed to fuel widespread adoption of technology meant to improve clinical trial operations.

Purpose-built technologies uti­lizing multiple data sources provide sponsors and CROs with a data-driven approach to selecting sites most likely to enroll patients on time and on budget. This actionable intelligence removes the blinders inherent in older methods, leading to a more thoughtful and analytical method. This advances the process from identification and feasibility through to site activation.

 

Written by Guest Writer Jae Chung. Chung is the founding visionary of goBalto. A startup evangelist, he works with Rock Health to mentor healthcare technology startups. He previously co-founded Celltrion, a leading biopharmaceutical manufacturing company and was a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company.

This article was reprinted from Volume 23, Issue 12, of The CenterWatch Monthly, an industry leading publication providing hard-hitting, authoritative business and financial coverage of the clinical research space. The Action Items section features short columns  focusing on actionable or how-to advice from clinical trial professionals. To submit an Action Item, please contact editorial@centerwatch.com. Subscribe >>

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