Enhancing Medical Trials: Digital Decentralized Clinical Trials

Tomorrow’s healthcare isn’t just about the transformation into a fully digitized and interconnected system; it’s also about nurturing, approving, and implementing innovative digital medical products. To gain market approval, innovators must provide robust evidence demonstrating effectiveness, performance, data protection, security, and interoperability. Currently, the biggest hurdle isn’t just the stringent evidence requirements; it’s how we collect that data. Traditional clinical studies may not be the best fit for digital medical products. Instead, the future of clinical trials is digital and decentralized. Here’s an overview of the key characteristics of clinical studies, multicenter clinical studies, and dezentralized clinical trials:

Digital, decentralized clinical trials enhance traditional clinical trials without replacing them. They simplify study participation by moving the trial to the participant’s immediate surroundings: their home.

Here are five key advantages of Decentralized Clinical Trials (DCTs):

1. Participants: Less effort and more engagement 

DCTs tend to achieve higher participant acceptance compared to traditional clinical studies, where 30% of all participants end up dropping out (Cassidy-Soto et al., 2021). One key factor is the reduced effort required from both participants and trial centers. Since 70% of participants live more than two hours away from the trial center, it is mandatory for participants in traditional clinical trials to be willing to travel (ibid.). Participants of DCTs save time and energy by avoiding long journeys, which is particularly beneficial for those in remote areas.

Furthermore, instead of having a single orientation session at the trial’s outset, DCTs provide ongoing information throughout the study. This continuous communication fosters greater engagement and enhances compliance among participants, while also reducing the risk of drop-out.

2. Recruiting: Larger participant pool and greater diversity

80% of traditional clinical trials are delayed or terminated due to recruitment problems (Desai, 2020). That’s what DCTs leverage: Location independence facilitates easier participant recruitment, significantly expanding the pool of possible test subjects from the outset. Since distance between participants and the study center is no longer a factor in selection, it allows for a more diverse group of individuals. Another plus: Since patients can register from home and submit their data digitally, the hurdles to participation are reduced, too.

3. Costs: Lower Investments Required for Market Entry

DCTs play a key role in reducing the average costs associated with the market entry of a medical device. Because they are essential for generating the necessary evidence, clinical studies represent a significant investment prior to market launch. By streamlining the recruiting and registration process, speeding up data collection, reducing personnel costs, and eliminating the need for on-site management, the digitalization of clinical trials tremendously reduces the average cost for the market launch of a medical product.

4. Time: More time for research, and less for administration

New medical products typically require a long time to make it to market. While DCTs don’t fundamentally alter this reality, they do significantly reduce the time and effort needed for essential studies, ultimately benefiting the research team. DiMasi et al. (2022) recently showed that DCTs can reduce the overall duration of clinical trials by 10%.

Study management systems like DPM.research eliminate redundant data administration processes by ensuring that patient data is collected just once. This data is then accessible through the central platform, allowing for on-demand access – location-independent and across multiple processes. During a DCT, the clinical investigator and a virtual support team continuously collect data, allowing them to supervise participants closely without the need for time-consuming on-site visits. In sum, DCTs enhance the care provided to study participants while simultaneously simplifying and increasing the efficiency of researchers’ work.

5. Data Quality: Precise, standardized, driving better outcomes

DCTs rely on standardized processes, resulting in enhanced connectivity and improved data flow among all stakeholders. The recruitment of test subjects is data-driven, resulting in a more targeted selection and enrollment process. Data is synchronized continuously and in real-time, allowing medical device manufacturers to gain a deeper understanding of how their products impact health and well-being.

Although DCTs provide significant advantages over traditional clinical trials, they also face specific regulatory compliance challenges that need to be addressed for successful implementation. Learn more in our guide to Data Protection in Clinical Trials: Privacy and Compliance.

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