While it may seem counterintuitive, patients haven’t always had a seat at the table where research into their care is concerned. Only in the last decade, with organizations such as the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative, has research grown to recognize the crucial role of patient engagement.
Patient engagement is vital to the success of a clinical trial, and effectively incorporating it has been shown to boost clinical trial enrollment and retention rates. With higher patient engagement, there are more accurate targeted product profiles, more of the right kinds of patients can be recruited to the right trials, and more products can be developed that better meet the needs of patients.
Working with patients gives researchers the benefit of experience-based knowledge, and can guide clinical research toward the actual needs of patients, as well as encouraging transparency and trust in the research. In a trial testing a possible treatment for Duchenne muscular dystrophy, patient advocacy efforts helped to highlight the meaningful, real-life applications of the treatment, and aided in getting the drug FDA approved.
Further, patient engagement leads to the democratization of research processes and patient empowerment. It is vital to increase the accessibility of clinical trials to patients – as their involvement only leads to superior and more widely applicable research. Patient involvement empowers those being directly affected by the research, and is essential to high quality and efficient clinical trials. Still, a 2019 study by the Medical Device Innovation Consortium found that over 50% of medical protocol developers did not gain patient input, and that a further 28% gained input less than 25% of the time.
This can be rectified with the implementation of patient recruitment technologies such as the Citrus platform by Citruslabs, which recruits patients through pre-screening of their health data and offers enrollment into suitable clinical trials. These technologies improve patient engagement, as well as aid researchers in organization, scheduling, and follow-ups. They also ensure that patients can more easily stay informed about active trials that are right for them.
How can Citruslabs help?
Citrus is a fully integrated recruitment and retention software that fits any clinical trial and simplifies the implementation of patient engagement in your clinical trial. Whether you are already working with CTMS systems or not, Citrus is the perfect add-on to make patient interaction effective.
Since 2015, our team has been hard at work raising awareness of clinical trials across the globe. A Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ company and a graduate of the renowned Techstar program in New York, Citruslabs is at the forefront of patient recruitment and retention technologies. With over 3 million patients now recorded on our databases, our patient recruitment dashboard is fast becoming the most efficient method of trial recruitment.
Now a #1 health app in 17 countries, our Mindmate app is helping to revolutionize the way we think about healthcare. Mindmate “[takes] senior care into the digital age” (Forbes, 2018) by providing people with cognitive decline the essential tools to help them rebuild and maintain strong mental health. Trusted by millions of users, our health community continues to grow as the content available expands to the needs of individuals today.
With more than 200 research sites now using the Citrus platform to screen thousands of patients every month, researchers are now well on their way to finding new treatments for hundreds of different health conditions - something that just would not be possible without a technological solution. Make sure that your clinical trial is in the lucky 12% and turn that luck into guaranteed results with Citrus.
Still a little unsure? Check out what our customers have to say about us here.
And If you’d like to know more about how Citruslabs can help you recruit more effectively, get in touch with our team here.