BBK & TCN e-Systems Announce Online Patient Recruitment Training

Newton, MA - As the clinical trial industry seeks to address the greatest source of delayed drug development – the enrollment period – patient recruitment technology leader TCN e-Systems announced a training product that encapsulates the best practices for meeting study enrollment deadlines. Drawn from 25 years of applied patient recruitment experience and insight, the QuickTrainer provides sponsors with a highly advanced, Web-based approach to providing training for all members of the study community.

"We're seeing patient recruitment taking on a higher priority at executive levels, which means that global study teams, CROs, and monitors are feeling the pressure to meet or exceed enrollment deadlines," says TCN e-Systems founder Joan Bachenheimer. "It's not a matter of spending more time on recruitment, it's about recognizing patient recruitment as a distinct discipline and giving all study community members access to its principles."

To provide that knowledge, TCN e-Systems teamed up with global patient recruitment leader BBK Worldwide to design the QuickTrainer. Comprised of online training module sets, the QuickTrainer guides "students" through a stepped approach to learning recruitment essentials and applying new knowledge to current clinical projects. Each module has reading assignments, practical exercises, and feedback from expert patient recruitment advisors to reinforce learning.

Course content is partly drawn from BBK's recently released book, Reinventing Patient Recruitment: Revolutionary Ideas for Clinical Trial Success, and BBK patient recruitment advisors are assigned to each QuickTrainer participant to provide personalized feedback on the practical exercises. The level of feedback matches that of the student, meeting their knowledge and experience and encouraging them to stretch into a new mindset.

"Global study team leaders and their teams are taking on more and more accountability for all aspects of recruitment – from study feasibility and site selection to patient generation and retention," says Jaime Cohen, BBK Worldwide patient recruitment advisor, "and the QuickTrainer teaches them how to put a recruitment lens on all of those processes."

The program's secure, permission-controlled environment allows access across geographic regions and time zones, offering convenience to study team leaders, country managers, and monitors with busy travel schedules. The QuickTrainer is available in three module sets: Essential Patient Recruitment, Advanced Recruitment Techniques, and Customized Pre-Investigator Training.

The need for patient recruitment training is well-recognized in the clinical trial industry, as attested to by Kenneth Getz, Senior Research Fellow for the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development. "Patient recruitment and retention in clinical trials are large and growing challenges. Study protocols have become much more complicated and demanding of study volunteers over the past decade," says Getz. "It is imperative that clinical research staff have the training necessary to educate and engage their study volunteers as partners in the process if clinical trials are to succeed."

TCN e-Systems is offering a free Webinar on new techniques in patient recruitment training on November 13, 2007.

SOURCE: TCN e-Systems