The client is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and has been associated with HCLTech for over 14 years. The client’s mission is to introduce life-saving medications quickly and safely. To decrease cycle times, the company continuously innovates its drug development processes, including the clinical trial process.
The Challenge
Insufficient patient participation in clinical trials causes delays in studies
The client’s global product development team identified opportunities in the areas of clinical trial patient recruitment and management. Many studies failed to meet enrollment targets and experienced delays due to wait times associated with adding new patients to clinical trial sites. Since drug development depends on the speed and success of clinical trials, the team wanted to accelerate the patient recruitment process. The client wanted to deliver a successful process in the US and then replicate it globally.
The Objective
Optimize the clinical trial support ecosystem to achieve greater trial participation
The client needed a transformation partner with demonstrated excellence in life sciences, customer engagement and clinical support to improve services to patients along their health journey. The company wanted the partner to deliver a personal experience to individuals interested in participating in a clinical trial and provide prescreening and referral to the appropriate clinical trial site.
The ultimate program goals included the following:
- Engaging a broader base of patients for trials
- Reducing the frustration and confusion of trial participants
- Improving ongoing patient adherence during trials
- Achieving a higher success rate for completed clinical trials
The Solution
An omnichannel concierge support center for information seekers, potential trial and current trial patients
HCLTech helped the client improve the experience of study patients and information seekers in the US by providing the following:
- Developed a specialized concierge support service to help potential and current trial patients navigate the trials with which they are matched. The concierge service prequalifies potential patients, answers their questions and refers them to appropriate study sites
- Provided a live clinical patient support expert who offered warm and personalized interactions to the patients via phone or email. The concierge service is poised to expand in scope to a fully managed, automated omnichannel solution that provides self-service capabilities to trial patients for 24/7 support, including SMS, chat messaging and AI elements
- Other components of the solution are managing patients’ post-participation activities and inquiries as well as a registry that will serve as a source of potential participants
The Impact
Service excellence is paving the way for increased trial participation
The client’s partnership with HCLTech has resulted in optimizing the company’s clinical study support and engagement ecosystem. HCLTech’s clinical patient experts have managed and processed thousands of inquiries and referrals to trial sites with the highest degree of quality. HCLTech also supported the client during the extremely critical and challenging period of COVID-19 vaccine trials.
The client is delighted with the success of HCLTech’s foundational solutions and the business value that has been added by empowering client and patient outcomes. As a result, the client is looking to expand HCLTech’s support channels and include the concierge service in clinical trials globally.
