This US-based global pharmaceutical client wanted to streamline operations by establishing a unified support platform with a single point of contact for clinical trial research partners and patient participants. The company announced an RFP for the project and ultimately selected HCLTech, with whom they have had an ongoing business partnership for nearly 15 years.
Throughout the relationship with this client, HCLTech has successfully expedited clinical trials by developing new user administration tools and solutions for clinical study sites. The company recognized HCLTech’s acumen and expertise in pharmaceutical technology and support. They acknowledged the potential to boost operational efficiency and deliver the capabilities necessary to enable positive experiences across the clinical research landscape.
The Challenge
Inability to accommodate the increasing demand for clinical trials due to limited technology infrastructure
The client is at the forefront of pharmaceutical innovation, aiming to introduce life-saving medications as quickly and safely as possible. This requires optimizing efficiencies throughout the clinical research lifecycle, especially in terms of delivering best-in-class experiences for its users, including:
- Existing research partners:
The high expense of vetting and onboarding new partners is the fastest way to escalate testing costs and manufacturing new drugs.
- The patients participating in clinical trials:
Patient retention is the foundation that ensures the validity and efficacy of clinical trials
To be viable from a cost and quality perspective, clinical trial research depends on carefully coordinated and streamlined collaboration, data collection, management, learning and reporting. However, with the near-constant emergence of new and more advanced platforms and technologies–including biomarker devices and patient apps, the company was finding it more and more challenging to keep costs down and maintain high quality. Meeting the dramatic increase in demand for new clinical trials was not sustainable with its existing technology infrastructure.
The Objective
Consistently deliver positive user experiences in a demanding and ever-evolving environment
The company has always aimed to bring quality medicines to market quickly and cost-effectively by keeping cycle times down and continually improving the user experience in the clinical research process. Consistently accommodating this objective today and into the future requires digital transformation to:
- Facilitate seamless adoption of advanced technologies
- Simplify research operations
- Achieve process efficiencies and effective cost containment
- Enhance innovation, productivity and agility
The goal was to implement a new contact center solution with omnichannel capabilities and 24x7 multilanguage support for patients and researchers. This required HCLTech to design a technology infrastructure capable of supporting this ambition.
The Solution
An omnichannel clinical research support center
After a thorough assessment of the company’s existing technology challenges, HCLTech’s first initiative was to implement and fully staff the new Clinical Research Support Center (CRSC), which was initially started as a support center for Electronic Data Capture (EDC). The CRSC is a single point-of-contact support solution dedicated to internal processes and the seamless introduction of advanced technologies to the digital infrastructure.
HCLTech addressed the client’s primary objective of a new robust digital infrastructure with industry-leading omnichannel support technology, quality control and knowledge management systems, which underpin the new CRSC system. Included in the customized solution were 24x7 omnichannel support services in English, Italian and French provided by HCLTech.
Most recently, HCLTech has continued to expand the breadth of the CRSC’s capabilities, as it now includes a wide range of additional services that ensure seamless transitions for research partners to the company’s new technologies and processes–from provisioning to de-provisioning and everything in between.
Other key components of the HCLTech-built solution include:
- System navigation and troubleshooting
- Study site close-outs
- User administration
- Emergency code break support
- Clinical study reporting
The Impact
Seamless technology adoption and enhanced innovation, productivity and agility
With the omnichannel support center in operation, users can now request support in the way they feel most comfortable: phone, email, chatbot or opening a ticket. CRSC agents take ownership of each incoming request, simplifying the overall process and helping to avoid escalations.
The client realized the following benefits:
- Faster turnaround time
- Resolved technical queries and requests related to new technologies and platforms within 18 hours, a significant improvement from the user experience prior to the CRSC
- The team of 200+ resources in four operations centers now supports 20 unique applications for 125 clinical studies at any given time
- Enhancements include speedier resolution of access management requests, accurate tracking of CRSC activities and faster generation of CRSC reports, HCLTech significantly enhanced the visibility and accuracy of the requests during the project
- HCLTech has supported 3,500 clinical study sites across 75 countries and multiple languages. The company has improved its relationship with its 200+ clinical research partners and thousands of patients
In the future, CRSC solutions will be redefined to enhance the user experience further. The plan for the future is to have HCLTech begin managing the administration of the company’s Safety Information Reporting Integrated Unified Solution (SIRIUS) portal, which will increase the overall level of clinical trial safety. To improve resolution times even more and provide an additional $2 million in client savings, HCLTech will automate 40 percent of all user administration activities. This initiative will reduce user response times from 18 hours to just a few minutes.
In summary, HCLTech will continue to partner with the client to further its position as the clinical trial sponsor of choice in the increasingly important field of pharmaceutical research.
