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Forecasting Total Study Enrollment

Why you need a recruitment partner that can visualize (and interpret) the big picture

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Continuum Clinical

Enrollment forecasting through predictive modeling is important to help sponsors and CROs understand exactly how they are tracking towards each of their milestones. Forecasting helps study teams determine the most efficient ways to move forward or course-correct if something gets off track. When making enrollment projections, isolating advertising referrals from the number of patients coming from site’s own recruitment efforts is ineffective—it means you’re only looking at half the data. To confidently project future results, these two data sets must be synthesized and understood together.

To help sponsors meet their enrollment goals on time and on budget, Continuum Clinical constantly monitors media referral volume alongside site enrollment data from IVRS. Our industry-leading ContinuVue® reporting platform collects an unparalleled amount of data about both site and patient recruitment campaign performance. It allows us to see how we are tracking towards sponsor goals, and to alert our teams and the sponsor if enrollment gets off track.

When making enrollment projections, isolating advertising referrals from the number of patients coming from site’s own recruitment efforts is ineffective—it means you’re only looking at half the data.

Having access to all this data in one place enables our analysts to quickly identify and optimize strategies to improve results in the short term and predict outcomes in the longer term. Our analysts use enrollment data, along with feedback from site engagement teams, as inputs into reports that track media referral trends and timelines from initial impression through randomization or disqualification. This provides a complete picture of site and program recruitment rates. The data gives us clear insight into how long it takes for a referral to be contacted, schedule an appointment, screen, consent, and randomize into the trial.

Knowing the intricacies of what happens to a referral once they complete a pre-screener or contact a site is important, and we rely on that data as an integral part of our forecasting process. Our site engagement specialists have direct interactions with site staff and can provide context around that data to help us understand the “why” behind site enrollment trends: Is a site slow to process referrals because they are understaffed? Is the study related to a condition with flares, and the site staff needs help or additional time reaching back out to patents who did not qualify previously, but may now be in a flare? Having this deep understanding allows us to make clear, confident predictions.

Each of these factors become variables in predictive modeling, and ensure we are presenting sponsors with the most detailed modeling possible. Enrollment forecasts and scenarios are generated by our team of statistic-minded analysts, who are stringent with ensuring adequate sample sizes and always careful to quantify their level of confidence in the forecasts they produce. These analysts consistently search for ways to help our sponsors and internal teams optimize enrollment and take a multitude of variables into account each time they generate a unique forecasting projection.

Enrollment delays happen—sites are slow to activate, protocol amendments take time to process, screen failure rates may be different than anticipated. If you have a partner who has been collecting and analyzing data throughout the program, you won’t be surprised by how enrollment is tracking, and you will be in the best position to sort through options to find a solution that will maximize your time and money, so you can reach your milestones as close to on-time as possible.

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    About Continuum Clinical

    Continuum Clinical is a global clinical trial enrollment company that has been providing fact-based patient recruitment solutions since 1993. We have built and maintained long-standing relationships with pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world, including 10 of the top 20 global Sponsors. This experience led Continuum Clinical to become the industry’s most trusted partner for clinical trial engagement, recruitment, retention, and analytics.