Remote Work Success Is Built On Pre-Site And Site Initiation Visits

By Danielle Starke, inSeption Group

The unique demands of remote work can require institutions — sponsors, sites, CROs, and other entities that support clinical trials — to fundamentally change their organizational structure to empower use of remote work tools and strategies.

Strong communication fosters understanding, and we believe a mix of PI engagement and thoughtfully developed industry standards can help to ensure better results for clinical trials utilizing remote work. As an industry, it is unsustainable for us to overburden people with more than X studies or Y total patients, or to place them in roles without the resources or training to excel. This is doubly true when peer-to-peer interactions on-site are minimized or eliminated by remote work.

The PSV and SIV offer opportunities to understand the workloads of everyone who will be assigned to the study, and to determine support systems for those individuals. Upper management must prioritize communication and proactive risk management to enable their personnel to succeed. People tend to produce better work when they know you are present and engaged, and not just leaving them to tread water.