Beyond recruitment: Creating patient engagement that lasts

Recruitment has long been seen as the primary challenge when it comes to clinical research. But, as many sponsors have discovered, finding patients is often just the tip of the iceberg. The real challenge comes in keeping patients engaged, informed, and motivated through increasingly complicated clinical trial journeys.

Patients don't experience clinical trials in terms of episodic site visits, protocols, or milestones. They experience them as real people balancing health concerns, family commitments, work responsibilities, and treatment decisions, and when those realities aren't reflected in study design, communications, and engagement strategies, recruitment slows and retention suffers.

In the final episode of our patient- and site-centric solutions interview series, developed in partnership with IQVIA, Zoltan Varga, vice president and global head of patient recruitment and enablement at IQVIA, sat down with pharmaphorum Deep Dive editor, Eloise McLennan, to discuss how patient recruitment and engagement (PRE) can help sponsors better understand what motivates participation and keeps patients committed.

They also explore why recruitment and retention should be viewed as one continuous strategy, how patient voice can be incorporated earlier into trial planning, and why successful studies increasingly depend on creating experiences that work for patients, sites, and sponsors alike.

About IQVIA

IQVIA (NYSE:IQV) is a leading global provider of clinical research services, commercial insights and healthcare intelligence to the life sciences and healthcare industries. IQVIA’s portfolio of solutions are powered by IQVIA Connected Intelligence to deliver actionable insights and services built on high-quality health data, Healthcare-grade AI, advanced analytics, the latest technologies and extensive domain expertise. IQVIA is committed to using AI responsibly, with AI-powered capabilities built on best-in-class approaches to privacy, regulatory compliance and patient safety, and delivering AI to the high standards of trust, scalability and precision demanded by the industry. With approximately 88,000 employees in over 100 countries, including experts in healthcare, life sciences, data science, technology and operational excellence, IQVIA is dedicated to accelerating the development and commercialisation of innovative medical treatments to help improve patient outcomes and population health worldwide.

IQVIA is a global leader in protecting individual patient privacy. The company uses a wide variety of privacy-enhancing technologies and safeguards to protect individual privacy while generating and analysing information on a scale that helps healthcare stakeholders identify disease patterns and correlate with the precise treatment path and therapy needed for better outcomes. IQVIA’s insights and execution capabilities help biotech, medical device and pharmaceutical companies, medical researchers, government agencies, payers and other healthcare stakeholders tap into a deeper understanding of diseases, human behaviours and scientific advances, in an effort to advance their path toward cures. To learn more, visit www.iqvia.com.