The Science of Patient Reminders

By Cenduit

Patient compliance and retention are critical to the success of your clinical trial. Anyone who has helped recover a noncompliant study or reduce the volume of early patient withdrawal knows the recovery process is stressful and costly for sponsors and investigative sites. Senior management at some of the most innovative drug development companies understand patient retention is top priority, and they recognize the cost and resource wastage associated with patients lost to follow up. It’s no longer acceptable.

An astute patient reminder system can help you achieve the level of patient compliance and retention your trial needs to stay on track for success.

Protocol Compliance: Reactive vs. Proactive
Clinical trial study teams often dedicate most of their energy to getting studies up and running, while they assume sites will take responsibility for patient motivation, protocol compliance, and patient retention. A compliance and retention program is usually an afterthought that is addressed only if a problem arises. This reactive approach is not only extremely inefficient but also it can be detrimental to the success of the clinical trial.

There is also increasing pressure from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on sites to take a more proactive approach to noncompliance. 1 If the clinical study team focuses on engaging and motivating patients at the start of the trial, this will prevent study delays, decrease the burden on investigator sites, and ultimately increase the reliability of study endpoint data.