Clinical research and clinical trials offer invaluable advances and benefits to the future of medicine. After all, these trials save lives even if it takes years to verify the science behind it.
But clinical research faces several barriers today, and we believe IoT-enabled clinical trial platforms can be one major way to eliminate these barriers.
Key Barriers to Running Clinical Trials Effectively
A recent survey by Applied Clinical Trials studied over 11,000 clinical trial participants to identify major barriers to their enrolment.
After all, while 70% of patients are willing to enroll in trials, only a fraction of them (between 5-10%) actually end up doing that.
Burden of travel
Over 44% of participants in the ACT survey stated that travel is a top burden for them. Most of the participants live over an hour away from the lab or clinic.
Out of this group, 38% of participants claimed that they would be more willing to participate in clinical research if it was made virtual and they could eliminate the problem of travel.
Invasive diagnostic tests
The next top reason participants drop out of clinical trials is the number of invasive diagnostic tests. 42% of surveyed participants claimed this was the reason they couldn’t continue participating in a clinical trial.
Duration of visits and lab work
40% of participants felt that each visit to the lab or clinic was far too long for their liking. And over 38% of them struggled with lab work and filling out the paperwork for their tests.
Compare this to just 18% of participants who dropped out due to the side-effects of the new drug they were taking for the trial! It’s a huge loss for the clinical research community.
Lack of clear communication and support
Finally, another barrier is the lack of clear, timely, and supportive communication from the organizers and researchers.
Often, participants find the communication too complex and too full of scientific jargon to even understand what they are consenting to. An NIH survey found that clear communication in simple, easy-to-understand language would go a long way towards building deeper trust and understanding between researchers and participants.
How IoT-enabled Clinical Research Platforms Can Eliminate These Barriers?
We didn’t just bring up all these problems faced by clinical researchers without a compelling solution for it!
Here’s how switching to an IoT-enabled clinical trial platform can help researchers and research administrators without blowing up all your funding.
Eliminate the barrier of distance
IoT-enabled devices use sensors to transmit vital health data in real-time. This means, participants no longer have to travel to your lab or clinic to participate in your study.
And you can access pre-set health data at any time on a handy IoT dashboard remotely. This makes it easier to study different subsets of participants and eliminate the problem of geographic distance while receiving access to live data.
Reduce invasive tests and visit duration
With IoT remote patient monitoring, you can eliminate invasive tests in many cases. Where these tests are unavoidable, you can reduce the number of tests with IoT technology.
You won’t have to spend a lot of time collecting vitals before performing a test. This will reduce the duration of each visit.
Streamline lab work and communication with AI driven workflow
An IoT platform can streamline every aspect of your operational workflow. Here’s how:
- Quick, seamless participant onboarding
- Secure, centralized data collection and visualization
- Real-time lab and report management
- Secure and quick payment gateways
- Real-time communication through emails, SMS texts, or Push notifications
- Telemedicine to offer additional support for remote participants
- Improve compliance with federal and state frameworks with transparent reports and visualizations
Imagine a future where researchers and participants work in perfect harmony for the future of medicine with IoT-enabled clinical trial platforms.
Why Choose Bridgera for Your Clinical Research?
At Bridgera, we ensure that technology meets compassion to drive the future of the economy. We have successfully helped conduct a remote smoking cessation study for our client.
Here’s what you can expect from us for your clinical research platform:
- Smooth IoT device integration with our cloud
- Complete customization for each study and trial
- Seamless integration with your existing applications and infrastructure
- Scalable architecture for our platform that grows with your study
- Customized dashboard and IoT software development to suit your needs
- Get a IoT Proof of Concept (PoC) in just 2 weeks to reduce time-to-market
- Our solution is white-label and customized just for your study
Help us help you today
We’re here to support researchers and administrators do what they do best – focus on quality studies to improve the quality of all our lives. Let us handle your IoT connectivity and operational workflows and make your path just a bit easier.
Get in touch with us today at info@bridgera.com to know how we can customize our IoT clinical research platform for you.
About Bridgera: Bridgera effortlessly combines innovation and expertise to deliver cutting-edge solutions using connected intelligence. We engineer experiences that go beyond expectations, equipping our clients with the tools they need to excel in an increasingly interconnected world. Since our establishment in 2015, Bridgera, headquartered in Raleigh, NC, has specialized in crafting and managing tailored SaaS solutions for web, mobile, and IoT applications across North America.
About Author: Krishna Varma is a writer and researcher, who enjoys writing about technology, IoT, and lifestyle. When she isn’t writing and reading, you’ll find her relaxing with a quiet cup of tea over the weekends.