Orchestrating the future of clinical trials

Technology is bringing innovation to the life sciences sector and transforming the patient experience.

Clinical trials would be impossible without willing participants. Vaccines, drug treatments, medical devices, and other clinical services designed to prevent disease, treat illnesses, and improve quality of life could be delayed or even derailed without effective trials.

For life-sciences organizations and pharmaceutical companies, the work of coordinating the complex and interdependent stages of clinical trials – especially the critical recruitment and retention of patients – has long been a slow-going, labor-intensive, and manual process. But that’s swiftly changing, thanks to the power of technology to automate, accelerate, and scale the clinical trials process. As a ServiceNow consulting partner, Capgemini is helping organizations undertake this type of business transformation, delivering operational services to support all participants in clinical trials, especially patients.

A holistic approach to transforming trials

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the ways in which people interacted and went about their daily lives changed dramatically. With people directed to stay at home, Signant Health, the company awarded clinic-trial management for Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, faced a monumental challenge. It had to urgently find a way to organize the tens of thousands of patients required to bring a vaccine to the world and concurrently manage large-scale data, patient engagement, and communication – all under stringent deadlines. Millions of lives were at stake. If people couldn’t participate in clinical trials in person, there had to be a way to reach them in their new, largely virtual, lives.

With Capgemini’s support, experience, and industry expertise, Signant Health moved to ServiceNow’s NOW platform to support a more robust patient experience. Within four weeks, the people, processes, and tools were in place and integrated to execute a highly complex study with more than 46,000 patients. Signant Health now had the technological capacity to deliver an innovative method of clinical service orchestration – the seamless integration and delivery of operational services to patients, healthcare providers, and pharmaceutical companies.

Automating the patient experience from mobile phones to chatbots

That process generated a 95 percent patient satisfaction rate, notably because it was innovative, simple, and intuitive, but there was another reason: it was human-centric, putting participants first. That is critical, as a major hurdle in clinical trials is that, on average, 30 percent of patients drop out over the course of the process. That results in 85 percent of clinical trials failing to retain enough participants.

So, why are people exiting trials that could improve their own lives and potentially those of millions more? Reasons include onerous record-keeping requirements in paper journals, the need to travel to in-person appointments, and barriers in accessing timely information and support, like troubleshooting issues with wearables.

The NOW platform’s patient portal, which is accessible around the clock, helps remove these obstacles. And much like any customer journey, like shopping, banking, or streaming a movie, the online user experience is critical, for patients and for investigators and other participants. People expect an omnichannel experience and the platform delivers, ensuring seamless operations, enabling patients to access the portal via mobile and other connected devices.

Driving the patient experience also delivers business outcomes

Clinical trials take time and the best way to improve outcomes is to provide high-touch multi-channel support, where patient engagement and communication are key. Imagine the continuum and volume of “contacts” required throughout the trial’s life cycle and the impact that has on patients. The portal is designed to anticipate and guide the non-linear patient journey, thereby expanding accessibility and boosting the overall experience.

Between in-person visits, patient data is collected through mobile phones, IoMT devices, and other connected technologies, such as wearables that track health metrics and patient diaries. This eliminates the need for manual record-keeping and the potential for patients to miss reporting or forget key details that could create gaps in, or reduce the reliability of, the data.

Patient privacy, however, remains paramount. Medical data is not stored on the ServiceNow platform. Its core focus is ensuring seamless operations and powering and optimizing workflows to enable a quick resolution. If a patient has a concern or feedback, they can provide that through an automated channel, like a chatbot, or live support. The result is two-way communication where patients can drive improvements and also find quick solutions to frequent queries. This supports patient retention, which promotes speedier and more successful clinical trials, accelerating time to care for life sciences organizations.

The platform we developed with ServiceNow and Signant Health was an unqualified success and helped develop a vaccine for the deadliest health crises to occur in many generations. For life sciences companies, this translates into better IoMT device management, reduced operational friction, improved trial efficiency, and increased patient satisfaction. It is an example of technology helping humans when we needed it most.

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