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T-18: Effectiveness of Patient Portals in Clinical Trial Recruitment

Poster Presenter

Lauren Holmes

Global Trial Manager
Rutgers University/Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
United States

Objectives

To determine the effectiveness of using patient portals as a way to enhance patient recruitment for clinical trials.

Method

A literature analysis was performed, looking into studies and case reports published between 2008 to 2018 on the use of patient portals for enrolling patient in clinical trials. MeSH terms searched include: “patient portals”, “clinical trial recruitment”, “enrollment” and “clinical trial portals”.

Results

Studies show patient portals enable clinical trials sites to track clinical data for patients, allowing them to store this information for future trial recruitment. Current patient portals include hospital electronic medical records (EMR) as well as portals specifically designed for the use of clinical trial patient recruitment, such as Clinical Conductor, Ripple, eClinical, and Study Manager Reveal, to name a few. The information from these portals can be filtered to assess a patient’s likelihood of qualifying for a clinical trial. Due to the clinical information stored, site personnel are able to search patients who have and have not participated in clinical trials to determine who may qualify for research studies. Case reports show that access to this information through patient portals allows investigators to easily identify potential patients and therefore recruit patients for clinical trials at a faster rate. The case reports also state that the patients recruited from these portals exhibit a greater likelihood of remaining in studies. Many of the patient portals featured health information technology demonstrating capabilities for patients to interact with the investigators of the trials through the portals. Automatic messaging on these portals can send information regarding clinical trials to patients to gain interest for studies. Previous research shows that more than 50% of patients receiving these messages on portals respond. This increases access to potential patients, where portal systems can send mass recruitment messages in 1 minute or less to hundreds of patients, compared to spending nearly 5 minutes calling each individual patient for recruitment. Prior studies conveyed that 33% of patients receiving portal messages consented for clinical trials and met the criteria necessary to participate, indicating that the hypothesis of patient portals showing effectiveness in clinical trial recruitment remains true.

Conclusion

The clinical recruitment and enrollment process of clinical trials tends to be a challenge for study sites, often resulting in many patients not meeting qualifications for inclusion and exclusion criteria. The use of patient portals appears to enhance patient recruitment for clinical trials based on current case reports and studies on their use. The clinical information stored in patient portals increases the knowledge investigators have on any potential subject and whether or not the patients would be willing to participate in a specific trial before seeing them in person, improving the efficiency of clinical trial recruitment. These portals not only help with bringing in patients for studies, but also help with more accurate recruitment, reducing screen failure rates. The portals help to focus on preliminary qualifications for studies prior to bringing patients on site for formal screenings. In doing so, investigators have a better idea of whether or not these individuals will likely qualify for studies as well as determine if the patients are interested in participating in research. While trials have different budgets, reports show that using patient portals has the potential to drastically decrease the costs of clinical trials. By enhancing patient recruitment, decreasing screen failure patients brought into the clinic, and decreasing the length of time trials are conducted, these portals can potentially save thousands to millions of dollars depending on the size of the trials if used over the course of an entire study.