Blog

Data security and privacy concerns remain one of the biggest barriers holding patients from participating in clinical trials.* With the public awareness about data security and privacy growing, it is more important then ever to pro-actively address these concerns. 

This blog first gives a background about the recent rise of public concerns (and patients concerns specifically) about online data security and privacy. Secondly, the ways that these concerns impact clinical trial participation are mapped. Finally, we will show how we address this with our patient-centric clinical trial database ClinLife.

Throughout history, adversity often gave rise to innovation as we adapted to new challenges. Although the COVID-19 pandemic set back clinical trials – as 80% of non-COVID-19 trials were stopped or interrupted – it also spurred a revolution in how clinical trials are conducted. During the pandemic, prospective patients were unable or reluctant to visit physical research sites, while some sites paused ongoing trials as capabilities were shifted to critical care resources. The pandemic also further amplified socioeconomic disparities and made it more difficult to reach diverse patient populations, requiring stakeholders to further rethink and redesign the coordination of clinical trials.  

We at Clariness strongly believe that it is crucial to better understand what’s important to patients and their needs during these challenging times. That’s why we conducted a survey in which we asked more than 17,000 patients from 21 countries a range questions across several topics, including a subgroup of people who are currently enrolled in a clinical trial on whether their participation is somehow affected by the pandemic.

The global health crisis due to the coronavirus pandemic has changed the world in ways no one could have anticipated. We live in extraordinary times with lots of challenges. We have to constantly adapt and make compromises due to ever-changing rules and regulations, which now form part of our daily lives.

Are you and your team well prepared to meet your recruitment targets during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Since its foundation 15 years ago, Clariness’ mission has been to provide patients with easy access to clinical trials. This lead to the idea to digitalize, raise awareness and build up a community around clinical trials resulting in the patient portal ClinLife.

Clariness is proud to announce that its highly well received Patient´s Voice Conference will take place on March 25^th 2021. Due to the pandemic, this year’s event will be held virtually. We hope this will allow even more people to have the opportunity to attend Patient’s Voice Conference.

Clariness believes that education is a key step to success. For the past 7 years, Clariness has supported education projects in a remote village near Sunyani, Ghana.

Clariness is doing its part to support and accelerate the world-wide release of a safe Covid-19 vaccine through its patient recruitment services for clinical trials.