Clinical trials are making the shift from solely in-person to online offerings as well. At online-clinical-trials.com, you can gain information about this newly emerging field such as what online clinical trials are, the benefits of online clinical trials and where to search for clinical trials to join.
Clinical trials are generally associated with in-person visits. A person will sign up for a trial and, in doing so, pledge to check in with researchers or healthcare professionals. There is usually a set number of visits scheduled, so staff can monitor the participant's progress. This is the standard formula, but like so many things in life, it's changing with the advent of better communication tools.
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A clinical trial is a research study where a new medicine or treatment is tested on a human sample group. The medication or treatment has already gone through a rigorous testing process before getting to the point of clinical trials, including an FDA review to confirm that the benefits offered by the treatment far outweigh any side effects.
The goal of the clinical trial is to determine how the patients react to the new product, which may be a medicine, device, or other intervention. Since they play a significant role in putting new treatment and health advances on the market, clinical trials are vital for expanding and improving our healthcare system.
As the name suggests, an online clinical trial is a clinical trial offered virtually. It may also go by the name virtual clinical trial, and it is the newest trend in the industry. Saving participants the trip to the hospital, clinic, or doctor’s office, their progress is instead assessed through virtual communication.
What a volunteer needs to complete the clinical trial will depend on what the clinical trial entails, but they are provided a medical study kit that contains any necessary materials. They then log into the designated platform, as provided by the clinical trial team, to check in with a staff member whenever is designed by the study.
Online clinical trials work best with disease areas where telemedicine is already an accepted practice.
Dermatology is one field that is very popular in online clinical trials because part of the dermatologist’s job is making accurate diagnoses based on photographs and patient symptomatology, which can easily be transferred to a virtual environment.
Also, the fact that skin diseases are often not life-threatening, and rarely require complex examinations, is yet another reason why online clinical trials work well with dermatology.
Any area of study where information can be gathered and analyzed remotely is a good candidate for virtual clinical trials.
Virtual clinical trials may also be used when evaluating medical products that already have a known safety profile and endpoints that can be measured remotely. It is unlikely for a potentially risky product to be tested remotely because it will be harder for the clinical trial team to intervene if needed at the time of treatment.
Some clinical trials websites specialize in listing Online Clinical Trials including:
The biggest benefit of online clinical trials is that they help to improve patient recruitment. Patient recruitment is one of the hardest parts of a clinical trial and can also be one of the longest processes. Online clinical trials increase recruitment because patients no longer have to endure the burden of time and travel spent going to physical sites.
Not only do online clinical trials improve patient recruitment, but patient retention also improves. The amount of time and money spent traveling to on-site locations can lead to many people choosing to withdraw from clinical trials.
Virtual clinical trials make it easier for research participants to fit it into their schedule, and it also saves them money in terms of travel costs. This is especially helpful for those with mobility issues or those who live in rural areas.
Online clinical trials remove geographic barriers, allowing the study to find the patients that will most benefit from the study no matter where they are located.
There are usually narrow eligibility requirements for clinical trial participation, which leads to the suspicion that the studies do not accurately reflect the patient population for which the new therapeutic is intended to treat. By removing the hurdle of travel, the participant population can more accurately reflect the people that will benefit from and use the new therapeutic.
Collecting data through digital means allows for continuous monitoring and collection of the health data parameters. This gives the clinical trial team a more realistic reading of how the person’s results vary throughout their day-to-day life and activities. This is an improvement to the small snapshots the team collects with in-person clinical trials during site visits. The clinical trial team can also analyze the digital data collected to predict drug profiles.
In addition, patients do not have to remember any symptoms they experienced for the next time they visit the site because they are monitored at all times. Adverse events are observed and analyzed right away, increasing the focus on patient health and safety.
The experimental medicine may be shipped directly to the patient or delivered by a nurse in some cases. For other trials, a nurse may conduct at-home visits to administer doses. During this time, they can also collect vitals, demographic information, and perform simple lab work.
With virtual clinical trials, devices may give alerts to help the participant adhere to the medical prescriptions and remember to take them when required. This also helps improve the accuracy of the new therapeutic since participants don’t have to worry about missing a dose.
If a procedure or test needs to be done, it can be delivered in a kit with instructions or samples, or a nurse may be sent to the participant’s house to perform it.
Virtual clinical trials take full advantage of current technology such as electronic monitoring devices, apps, and online social engagement platforms.
The integration of virtual components is already evident with the online screening process of interested volunteers through an online questionnaire that many studies, even those in-person, have adopted.
It is also possible for a clinical trial to be a hybrid between in-person and virtual. While some trials may be entirely virtual in the preliminary phases, as the trial progresses on, there may be more in-person visits (or nurse visits).
This is a rapidly growing field - more trials are being moved to fully online every day. To sign up to be notified about these online clinical trials, you can use a clinical trials notification service such as ClinicalConnection.com.
A clinical trial is a term that refers to any research study that strives to develop a new treatment. Whether it's a long-term disease or a short-term illness, the goal is to enroll patients and determine how they're reacting to a new product, which can be a medicine, device or other intervention. Clinical trials are vital for developing new medicines and health advances.
Developing new treatments in the medical field is often a lengthy and complicated process. Safety and treatment responses are important measurements, which can differ based on someone's family history, type of illness and many other factors. Also, because everyone's body chemistry is different, clinical trials typically need to evaluate the effects of a new treatment in a large group of people.
Learn more about clinical trials.