It was 2011 when Pfizer, for the first time in the history of clinical trials, initiated a virtual clinical study to test one of its drugs. While the project did not get to reach the completion stage owing to a lack of electronic data capture tools and redundancies in the system, it surely gave a kick-start to the concept of decentralized clinical trials.
Fast forward to 2020, when a large number of pharmaceutical companies, patient care providers, and medical research practitioners had to adopt decentralized clinical trials due to the lockdown restrictions. This was the same time when e-consent for clinical trials started gaining traction. And today, a vast majority of clinical research relies on electronic consent software to streamline modern clinical trials.
To find out how e-consent helped shape present-day clinical trials and its importance in the coming days, take a look at four ways electronic consent helps streamline modern clinical trials.
Expand Your Participant Pool
Electronic consent software allows clinical researchers to expand their participant pools and make it more inclusive as well as diverse. This is because the virtual tools present to support e-consent help trial organizers reach out to inaccessible patients, those in the remote areas, and those with limited physical capabilities to participate in clinical research.
Speed Up Recruitment Process
As per the statistics reported in a survey that had to halt its recruitment due to the pandemic in 2020, e-consent can help speed up participant intake. The survey reported recruiting nine participants in a month prior to moving to e-consent software, that allowed it to recruit up to 63 people in a month.
Increase Participant Retention and Trust
Because e-consent software allows participants to go through the consent forms at their own pace, this gives a boost to participants’ trust in a study. Participants partaking in study can make informed decisions regarding the collection of their information as well as data management as they better understand the full scope of the study.
Improve Compliance with Consent Guidelines
The food and Drug Administration (FDA), in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Human Research Protections (OHRP), drafted e-consent guidelines in 2015. By using electronic data capture tools and e-consent forms, clinical researchers can better fulfill compliance criteria and guidelines.
Streamline Modern Clinical Trials with Clinical Pursuit
If you’re looking for ways to streamline modern clinical trials, then contact us at Clinical Pursuit for a free demo. Our clinical trial data management software helps with e-consent in clinical trials and improves electronic data capture.
