In a word – YES.
To understand why they will, it is important to realize what is necessary to create an environment that is conducive to accurate and proactive referrals.
This environment must have the following:
1. Awareness
2. Ease
3. Compensation
4. Trust
First, let’s look at awareness. What truly constitutes awareness of a study? Is it enough for the Healthcare Provider (HCP) to have heard about the study from a colleague or investigator? Even if they immediately understand, and remember the protocol objectives, it is very unlikely that the complex inclusion/exclusion criteria will remain ‘top of mind’. I recently spoke with the CMO of Neurology at a well-known academic research center and he admitted that even the 15% of his colleagues that open his regular emails concerning on-going studies have only a basic awareness of the work his team is doing. For there to be a true understanding among referring physicians, they must not only be aware of the study, but there needs to be a way for them to see exactly which patients under their care would potentially be eligible for referral. EHR data has much of the information required to make this initial assessment. If you give HCPs a clear and concise overview of the study along with a list of their patients they should consider for pre-screen, you are now making the awareness actionable. Knowing what the study is about is a start, but knowing who the study could benefit is a deeper level of understanding that gives the HCP a course of action.
Making it easy to act is the second requirement of a referral based environment. If a provider must run their own EHR queries, or ask their office staff to have IRB and HIPAA compliant conversations with potential volunteers, it becomes too complicated to engage the patient. Waiting for the patient to present is also a problem because then the provider must somehow remember to work the conversation into a normal office visit. HCPs are asking for support from a call center that is surveying patients from an IRB approved script and then scheduling consults that are structured just around discussing a specific study. This creates a workflow that easily pre-screens patients and is conducive to a thoughtful and accurate referral. Although easy, none of this will happen without a compensation component.
Physicians are familiar with the compliant secondary usage of data. They are motivated by population health management initiatives and use health care operations activities to evaluate alternative courses of care for large portions of their chronically ill patient populations. Compensation is a compliant and expected component of these actions. If physicians are proactively consulting with patients regarding a referral to a clinical trial, they can legally be compensated fair market value for their time. There are guidelines already established by CMS for what is fair and reasonable. HCPs across the country are looking for additional revenue streams and if one can come from pre-screening interested patients for clinical trials while improving patient satisfaction and engagement, then all the better.
This brings us to the final, and very important, point of trust. There are many initiatives out there around patient and physician awareness of clinical trials. Although the messaging may be sound, action will not be taken if the source is not known and trusted by the recipient. A conversation between a PI and referring HCP is the beginning of creating the environment needed to foster referrals. Patients trust their HCPs. It is necessary for those providers to also know and trust the research site. If this is accomplished early in the process, then the awareness will stick, the easy workflow will be initiated and HCPs can be fairly compensated for their vital role in identifying and referring highly motivated and qualified patients.
About the Author:
Greg Sweatt is the Vice President of Life Sciences at ePatientFinder and has over 20 years of experience in organizing sales teams, designing marketing messages and managing growth in technology markets. For the past several years, he’s focused on the emerging field of interactive patient services. A veteran of applied materials, Greg managed multibillion-dollar accounts such as LSI, WaferTech, SemaTech and Samsung, determining their needs and delivering cutting-edge capital equipment solutions. He excels in creating repeat revenue opportunities and sustainable growth that’s less susceptible to external market forces and industry downturns.
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