Modern clinical research requires modern methods for effective clinical trial management. Historically, difficulties arise with recruiting enough patients for clinical trial participation. Roughly 80% of trials fail to meet their patient enrollment target and timeline—delays that can cost as much as $8 million daily.

Today, partners like AutoCruitment offer digital patient recruitment strategies to help ensure that your trial successfully recruits high-quality, qualified participants. By utilizing digital tools for clinical trial patient recruitment, contract research organizations (CROs) fill their funnels much faster and more efficiently. 

This article breaks down the digital recruitment process and some of its benefits, challenges, and best practices below to help you understand why it has become essential for clinical trial recruitment. 

What Is Digital Patient Recruitment?

Digital patient recruitment is a technology-driven approach to finding and enrolling clinical trial participants. It leverages online tools, digital platforms, and patient data to identify and engage prospective patients more efficiently than traditional methods.

Digital advertising plays a central role in this process, placing targeted ads in front of individuals looking for information related to their condition or who meet study parameters. Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram expand this reach, enabling recruitment from a diverse and broad patient population. 

These ads direct patients to custom-built screeners, ensuring only the most qualified participants are selected. Once prospects have been properly directed, online databases and Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems also help verify their eligibility.

Why Digital Recruitment Is Critical for Clinical Trials

While digital recruitment would have been more convenient for previous trials, it has become essential. Not only have trials become more complex, but for more broadly applicable results, they must also meet greater patient diversity requirements. This also depends on a broader geographic reach.

Digital recruitment addresses all these issues by casting a wider net than is possible through traditional methods, ensuring the sufficient recruitment of patients. AutoCruitment also retains a database of millions who have already expressed interest in and consented to clinical research. This comprehensive access shortens recruitment timelines and improves trial engagement rates.

How Digital Patient Recruitment Works

These five steps comprise AutoCruitment’s digital patient recruitment process:

1. Using proprietary algorithms, AutoCruitment first targets prospects on social media, search and display networks, communities, mobile applications, and advocacy groups. Prospects’ data is collected through their browser behavior or based on geo-targeting.
2. Once prospects have been identified, they are shown targeted advertisements related to the clinical trial’s focus area, such as the specific disease or condition. Prospects typically see these ads on search engines, health-related websites, or social media platforms.
3. The advertisements then lead prospects to online pre-screeners that determine whether they can participate in the trial. This is typically done through questionnaires or data validation tools like EMR. The introduction of AI in patient screening helps automate the process even further.
4. If a prospect passes the initial screening, a Patient Engagement Specialist or Registered Nurse contacts them, depending on the complexity of the trial. These professionals assess the prospect further and ensure they understand the trial process before fully committing to participating.
5. Prospects who commit to the trial become patients. Their information is securely transferred to the clinical trial site through AutoCruitment’s Patient Management Portal, where the trial site manages their participation​.

Benefits of Digital Patient Recruitment

The impacts digital patient recruitment services have on clinical trials and research include:

• Speed: Digital patient recruitment reduces recruitment timelines, accelerating trial completion and saving costs associated with delays.
• Efficiency: Targeted advertising and automated pre-screening ensure that only prospects who meet the trial’s criteria are enrolled.
• Broader reach: Recruitment through digital platforms enables trials with global access to potential participants.
• Cost-effective: Digital recruitment reduces the need for extensive site-based recruitment efforts, saving time and money.
• Enhanced targeting: Digital recruitment can focus on patients already interested in or affected by the specific conditions under study, improving engagement and relevance. Geographic targeting further allows for customized outreach to relevant populations.
• Real-time optimization: Campaigns can be swiftly adjusted based on real-time data and metrics, maximizing recruitment success and resource efficiency.

Challenges of Digital Patient Recruitment

While superior to traditional recruitment methods, digital patient recruitment has challenges. One specific to the medium includes limited digital literacy, especially among older or less technology-savvy prospects. This might also be the case for handicapped or disabled patients.

Similarly, digital patient recruitment likely involves a multi-channel approach (i.e., engaging with audiences on multiple platforms), as the patient audience for one trial may not gravitate to the same platform.

Per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, patients may also express concerns over their data privacy. This could relate to the data used to target them in the first place, the safety of the data they provide through digital interfaces, or potentially identifiable social content, such as testimonials. 

Establishing patient trust remains critically important when successfully recruiting and engaging patients. One of the primary reasons patients agree to participate in clinical trials is “trust in the attending physician,” so be sure to evaluate all posts and engagements for potential compliance violations.

Best Practices for Successful Digital Patient Recruitment

Follow the best practices below to overcome digital patient recruitment challenges and maximize this outreach method.

Targeted Advertising

Targeted ads in digital recruitment not only drive patient enrollment but also provide valuable educational outreach. By raising awareness about clinical research, these ads make studies more approachable and open up new healthcare access opportunities. 

More importantly, digital targeting allows recruitment efforts to focus specifically on patients actively interested in the condition being studied. This ensures advertising budgets are effectively spent on reaching individuals most likely to engage, minimizing waste and enhancing the relevance of each ad seen.

Patient-Centric Messaging

Like general consumers, patients prefer personalization. According to the Boston Consulting Group, personalizing healthcare and engagements improves customer experience and satisfaction, administrative cost, and quality standards within a year.

Patients feel greater trust towards institutions that communicate transparently, such as being clear about a trial’s risks and benefits. Moreover, Building such a trustworthy relationship can also help with patient engagement, potentially reducing the average dropout rate of 25%.

Data Privacy

Patients are also more trusting when they feel confident that their personal data is secure. AutoCruitment complies with stringent privacy regulations to protect patient data, including HIPAA and the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)​.

Technology Integration

AutoCruitment’s EMR capture and patient management portals are another way patients feel secure about their data. These digital tools streamline the recruitment and enrollment process, reducing administrative burdens for patients and sites​​.

Digital Patient Recruitment Has Become Crucial for Clinical Research

As clinical research grows in complexity and scope, digital recruitment is poised to become the industry standard. By leveraging digital tools, clinical trial sponsors can recruit patients faster, more efficiently, and from a broader demographic. This ultimately leads to quicker trial completion and greater cost savings. 

If your organization is looking to streamline its recruitment process, now is the time to adopt digital patient recruitment strategies to ensure the success of your clinical trials. Contact us today to learn more about how AutoCruitment can assist with patient recruitment solutions.