Clinical trials account for nearly 40% of the US pharma research budget. Just under half of that budget is the costs associated with patient recruitment. The pre-screening and screening process greatly impacts participant recruitment, and that directly affects the cost of a trial. According to one study, it costs $6,533 on average to recruit one patient to a clinical study, and the longer it takes to screen and recruit, the more costs rise. ‍

More efficient screening reduces trial costs

When you look at the numbers, it very quickly becomes apparent that the more efficient and accurate the pre-screening and screening of trial participants becomes, the greater the opportunity to reduce trial costs and accelerate time to market.

However, the pre-screening and screening process for clinical trials requires significant data collection, which has most often relied on a labor-intensive process, via phone or in person, or the use of web-based surveys to gather what’s needed to determine eligibility.

While these methods may lend themselves to basic questions and answers, as participants progress through the screening process, these approaches can become problematic. Screening potential participants for inclusion and exclusion criteria is not simple and collecting health-related and medical history information is complicated. Web-based surveys can’t necessarily accommodate this complexity, and phone or in-person screening becomes very costly.

Delays due to screening challenges are one of the main contributors to the 86% of registered clinical trials that don’t meet their intended planned enrollment deadlines. Moore TJ, Zhang H, Anderson G, Alexander GC, Estimated Costs of Pivotal Trials for Novel Therapeutic Agents Approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, 2015–2016, JAMA Internal Medicine, Nov. 2018.

Collecting health-related and medical history information is complicated. Web-based surveys can’t necessarily accommodate this complexity, and phone or in-person screening becomes very costly.

Improve screening with virtual agents

Relying on staff to screen participants has a significant limit—resource availability. Calls or in-person appointments can only be made during hours when people are available to perform the screening process. Potential trial participants are busy, and rounds of phone tag or an inability to conveniently schedule a time to meet can result in patient frustration and loss of interest.

How could contract research organizations (CROs) and patient-recruitment vendors do better?

There was a time when web-based surveys were the answer. As more and more people gained access to the internet, moving screening online made sense—it could speed the process while also eliminating the need to involve high-cost resources. But as the internet has become ubiquitous, so has survey fatigue.

Research shows that the average completion rate drops to 65% for four- to eight-question questionnaires. For questionnaires with 15 or more questions, this rate declines to under 42%. At the same time, relying on web-based screening can also impact a study’s ability to reach populations who may not have internet access or who lack technology savvy.

Today, CROs and patient-recruitment vendors need the ability to screen participants 24/7 to maximize screening efforts and reduce the time to cost effectively enroll qualified patients in clinical trials.

That’s where Gridspace Grace can help.

The Gridspace Grace virtual agent enables CROs and patient-recruitment vendors to more efficiently and cost effectively screen patients for inclusion in clinical trials. In addition to providing an experience that can handle patient interactions consistently and compliantly in a natural and friendly manner, Grace also gives participants a convenient, easy and compliant way to engage in the screening process. CROs and recruiters not only gain auditability with 100% visibility into every conversation, they can also ensure procedure adherence for service consistency and seamlessly hand off to a person when escalation is needed.

Explore how Gridspace is pioneering real-time speech infrastructure for clinical trials.

The Gridspace Grace virtual agent enables CROs and patient-recruitment vendors to more efficiently and cost effectively screen patients for inclusion in clinical trials.