Cardiovascular disease patient recruitment
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death worldwide. In 2020 alone, the World Health Organization estimates that as many as 18 million people died from one of a variety of cardiovascular diseases. This represents over 30% of all deaths worldwide.
Despite this rapidly increasing prevalence and given the increasingly at-risk population due to aging and dietary habits, and the publicly stressed need for better treatments and therapies, organizers of cardiovascular trials continue to struggle with patient recruitment. In fact, recently conducted meta-reviews suggest, that recruitment for heart disease trials has not improved in the past years and remains one of the most difficult to recruit for indications.
Having performed patient recruitment for 70+ local and global cardiovascular disease trials from atrial fibrillation, heart attack, heart failure and stroke, we know how to reach heart patients, screen them and recruit them into trials. Based on your study protocol, we create a patient population profile and a matching digital outreach strategy that can reduce the cost of randomizations of up to 50%.
We have over 17+ years of experience in which we have supported 70+ cardiovascular disease studies across the globe. We have a proven track record of increasing qualified referrals for cardiovascular disease studies, reducing site workload and boosting randomization rates. Download our case-study to learn how.
Finding cardiovascular disease patients based on trial protocols
Some cardiovascular disease studies require patients who are in a relatively stable condition, while other studies require patients who are in an acute treatment state. Some study protocols require only a few 100 patients, while other studies require 1000 patients at sites around the world. Indeed, there is a great variance between the different cardiovascular diseases.
Because cardiovascular disease study protocols are often highly technical and specific on screener needs, study organizers need a patient recruitment vendor with the experience, patient understanding, and data-driven pre-screening methods.
Despite that organizers of clinical trials often assume that primary care professionals provide a “higher quality of referrals” because they have good documented heart patients, studies by McDermott (2016) among others have shown that for cardiovascular diseases as peripheral artery disease only a rough 10% of the randomizations came via this route.
A big reason for this, as we identified in our blog on the barriers to patient recruitment for cardiovascular diseases, is that barriers are not identified or solved.
Enrolling heart patients aligned with your protocol
Our Chief Medical Officer reviews your protocol and based on our past experience and knowledge of the local patient population we design a recruitment campaign. We can also do a feasibility analysis of your protocol and consult you on the impact of the inclusion and exclusion criteria.
Our medical team then creates the study and/or indication pages and patient-centered pre-screeners and standardizes the script of the eventual phone screener.
For cardiovascular disease, we know that while we can use a variety of platforms to target patients, the direct approach and specifically our database generate less traffic but ultimately more referrals.
Addressing patient diversity in cardiovascular disease trials
Historically, minorities, people of low socioeconomic status, and women have been underrepresented in cardiovascular disease clinical trials. This is despite the fact that People of Color (BIPOC) and people of lower economic status are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease such as heart attack and also for death from heart disease.
In addition, gender differences are often not taken into account in patient recruitment campaigns. For example, while men statistically develop cardiovascular disease at a younger age (and have a higher risk of certain diseases like coronary artery disease) than women, women have a higher risk of stroke and importantly, report significantly different symptoms.
In our cardiovascular disease patient recruitment campaigns, we always adapt our language, images and descriptions to people from different backgrounds.
Based on patient insights, our cardiovascular disease patient recruitment campaigns can reach a more diverse patient population and inform them about the possibility of new trials when they are available in their region.
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Leverage ClinLife’s patient-centric trial database for cardiovascular disease recruitment
Studies show that a better understanding of the clinical trial process, safety measures, and potential benefits, are the main reasons for participating in a cardiovascular disease trial. More so, recent studies show that financial compensation for many patients is at most “a nice feature”, and not a key factor in influencing their decision to participate in heart disease clinical trials.
For this reason our ClinLife® platform is designed in direct collaboration with patients for other patients.
On both our study and indication landing pages, we inform potential participants about clinical research on the specific type of cardiovascular disease as well as about the clinical trial process.
In addition, we recently launched our ClinLife® patient blog in both Poland and Germany, where we answer questions we receive, for example, from our 243,000 followers on Facebook about the clinical trial process, safety measures, and the ethics committee, and where we report on current research progress in cardiovascular disease.
Want to know more about patient recruitment for cardiovascular disease? Download our latest free whitepaper here.
Our digital targeting techniques
We have four ways of targeting patients when performing cardiovascular disease patient recruitment, and continuously review performance to optimize engagement and trial registrations
Location and capacity targeting
We reach cardiovascular disease patients living in areas within a predesignated radius around sites. Depending on the trial protocol and the type of cardiovascular disease as well as the location of the sites, we create a detailed patient profile and matching targeting method. Indeed, our motto that no two studies are the same, is particularly true for cardiovascular diseases.
Interest-based targeting
Patients searching or engaging (e.g., likes, shares, comments, etc.) with heart disease related content and symptoms are shown study advertisements. At Clariness, we apply great importance to the representativeness of our advertising. We include images of people from different backgrounds and highlight for example that women have different symptoms and experiences with heart diseases.
Demographic targeting and pre-screener
Gender, age, ethnicity, social-economic class, location, and other demographics are used as filters to find patients (and their families and closed ones) most likely to qualify for the study protocol. Based on pre-screener data, this patient profile used in outreach campaigns is constantly updated. This way we are able to target group-specific barriers, from lack of trust in clinical science among minorities, to travel distance and understanding of difficulties in participating and health literacy of elderly patients.
Behavioral targeting
We select from over 40+ possible digital channels the most cost-effective option and reach out to our large ClinLife database with a total of 1.3 million users worldwide, based on their location and the trial protocol inclusion and exclusion criteria. By continuously analyzing the (anonymized) behavior of those successfully enrolled, we can understand and reach similar people.
Explore our cardiovascular disease insights
Are you designing a cardiovascular disease clinical trial, or have one underway?
We can help you find the right patients, at the right time. To find out more about our cardiovascular disease patient recruitment, contact us.