February 19, 2020 | ORLANDO—Kicking off opening night at the 2020 Summit for Clinical Ops Executives (SCOPE), TrialScout received top honors at the fourth annual Participant Engagement Awards. One of six finalists, TrialScout was judged by a panel, along with audience participation, during a live presentation. Astellas and Bridgeable, as well as GRYT Health, were also honored.

TrialScout is “obsessed with the idea that there is a legion of people who can add something meaningful to the conversation and help the next person looking for a clinical trial,” Irfan Khan, CEO of TrialScout, said during his presentation. “We’re obsessed with finding them, capturing their voice, and learning from them.”

The result of that “obsession” is #FindtheFive, a social media campaign that uses TrialScout’s platform (www.trialscout.com) to harness the input from the over five million Americans that have participated in some form of clinical research over the past ten years.

“We’re interested in creating a space where patients can leave transparent, patient-facing ratings and reviews,” Khan said. “Unless you’re in the 5% that don’t use ratings and reviews, everything we do when it comes to finding stuff like restaurants and even our doctors relies on reviews. It’s the exception not to do so.”

Launched and with 5% of sites already using the platform, TrialScout is hoping this campaign will “revolutionize how the next five million participants find, engage, and participate in bringing new medicines to market faster.”

Two other entries were named runners up. In third place was Astellas in collaboration with Bridgeable, who set out to create a new communications capability to deliver best-in-class pediatric assents to foster an improved experience for pediatric patients and their parents/caregivers, while supporting internal stakeholders with the assent development process. Through an approach including in-depth interviews, collaborative prototyping, testing, and iterative reviews, three age-appropriate templates were developed that are creative and engaging, while respecting legal and regulatory guidance.

Coming in second place for the second consecutive year was GRYT Health, whose Global Virtual Cancer Conference allowed cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, advocates, providers, researchers, and professionals to engage with one another in a 100% free, 100% online capacity.

#BeLikeJerry

The Participant Engagement Award highlights creative work across the clinical research industry that helps better engage and understand research participants. The awards program is dedicated to the memory of Jerry Matczak, an advocate for patients, who won the first Participant Engagement Award in 2017.

The judges welcomed submissions from every aspect of the industry including sites, CROs, e-patient advisors, agencies, start-ups, and sponsors. All were invited to submit their best work in the Patient Recruitment and Retention communications field.

David Sall, President of Patient Enrollment Advisors, and Kelly McKee, Head of Patient Recruitment at Vertex, created the Participant Engagement Award in 2017. In addition to Sall and McKee, entries were evaluated this year by Angela Radcliffe, R&D Practice Lead in Life Science at Capgemini Invent; Joseph Kim, Senior Advisor of Patient Experience and Design Innovation at Eli Lilly; and Lilly Stairs, Patient Advocate, Board Member at AARDA, and Head of Client Relations at Savvy Cooperative.

Additional 2020 Finalists

H.E.A.L.

Sickle Cell Disease: A Community Education Conversation

H.E.A.L. conducted a community engagement session that organized minority congregants to increase knowledge about Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) prevalence, disease management, and treatment options. H.E.A.L. engaged with clinicians and advocacy groups to provide clinical information and support services to congregants for disease management. In addition, H.E.A.L. program attendees learned about the importance of diversity in clinical trials, how to find details about current SCD research studies, and how to access principal investigators and clinical trial sites.

Javara

The Clinical Trial Navigator: Breaking Down Barriers & Increasing Access for All

With the exception of oncology and rare diseases, clinical trials have generally been disconnected from the care provided by physicians and healthcare organizations. Through implementing strategies that promote clinical research as an innovative care option, Javara is able to see greater engagement across stakeholders, leading to longer term benefits for patients, providers, the healthcare organization, and society as a whole. One of the strategies involves the role of the Clinical Trial Navigator (CTN), who is embedded within the healthcare organization and actively works with the physicians (Principle Investigators), patients, and their care team to ensure there is consistent communication, greater understanding of clinical research, and a reduction of barriers.

Michael J. Fox Foundation

Parkinson’s Clinical Trial Companion

The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF), in collaboration with people with Parkinson’s and leading clinical trialists, developed the “Parkinson’s Clinical Trial Companion”, an open access, two-sided suite of materials aimed at enhancing research participation for the volunteer and researcher communities. The “Trial Participant Pack” (michaeljfox.org/ParticipantPack) for volunteers contains a 52-page guide and three accompanying videos that demystifies research participation through easy-to-follow information and first-person narratives from those conducting and participating in research. To maximize its impact, the “Trial Participant Pack” has been translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, European Spanish (ES) and U.S. Spanish. For trial sponsors, CROs and clinical sites, the “Trial Resource Pack” (michaeljfox.org/ResourcePack) offers a 46-page manual of field-tested recruitment and retention best practices and eight case studies from leading trialists, along with a 50-item toolkit of customizable templates and how-to guides to support study teams from enrollment through dissemination of results. To help volunteers and research teams get started, both sides of the “Parkinson’s Clinical Trial Companion” encourage use of Fox Trial Finder (foxtrialfinder.org), a free online clinical trial matching technology created by MJFF to connect Parkinson’s research teams with study volunteers.