Right Here, Right Now – Home Trial Support Is Key To Clinical Trial Success

Author: MRN

In today’s world there is nothing that can’t be delivered directly to your door, from groceries to prescriptions – and if it’s not a consumable, then it can be beamed straight to your laptop – Work? Check. School? Check. Therapy – pick your options: messaging, video, phone (and if you really want to, in-person as well). Regardless of where you are in the world, there has been clear seismic shift towards having more access, and doing more, from the comfort of your own home.1,2,3

Why would anyone then be expected to have to leave their home for healthcare? The short answer is they don’t. A study conducted in 2024 by DispatchHealth showed that 95% of  patients who responded would prefer to receive treatment at home, with 68% wanting hospital-level care in the home. And, unsurprisingly, 96% of caregivers found that in-home visits  were less stressful than attending hospital appointments.4

Another factor to consider is that Millennials and Gen Z, who collectively make up 44% of the world’s population,5 are already known for their preference for convenient and time-saving approaches when it comes to their routine healthcare needs. And for Millennials, their experience of the level of care they receive can be just as important.6

It’s important to consider the needs of these two population groups – Millennials and Gen-Zers, who already make-up the majority of the world’s adult population,5 are increasingly becoming the next cohort of clinical trial patients. Especially as there are continued pushes by the FDA and other health authorities for real world evidence7,8 in – a clear representation of those who are most likely to be taking newly developed therapies and medicines – in the clinical trial data they review.

It is the Millennial and Gen-Z cohorts that we can expect to see pushing back on traditional clinical trial settings, just as they have when it comes to their routine healthcare – opting for more convenient and/or digital solutions. 6 It’s hard to disagree with their approaches, especially since they are specifically chosen in order to optimize time, money, and efficiency – that’s the goal when it comes to running a clinical trial, so why shouldn’t it be the goal for those participating in it.

Listening To The Patients’ Needs – And Acting On It

Regardless of generation or background, the 2024 DispatchHealth study4 showed that patients would rather have in-home care. When we do take generation into account, it is clear that this is not something that is going to change – in fact, it is going to be expected.

To engage, recruit and retain patients, the onus is now on sponsors to understand that the patients then need to recruit in order to obtain crucial real-world data want to travel less, to be at a site visit for less time and to be able to have visits out of hours and any day of the week. They want reduced time costs and incidental costs for them and their partners, carers and families. Millennials and Gen-Zers have also made it clear – they want the freedom to be seen where and when they want

Once sponsors understand this, they can start to review solutions that can be baked into their clinical trials right from the start. This will allow them to reach more patients in more communities by delivering on what patients and their carers have already expressed is important to them – they want to be people first, and patients second.

Home Trial Support (HTS) now, more than ever, will play a pivotal role in early trial engagement, enrollment and retention. It is not a new methodology, but it has been seen as a nice to have, not an essential (COVID-19 pandemic aside). MRN has been delivering in-home trial support for over 18 years and has seen the positive impact it has on patients and trials alike.

HTS does not replace the site or the oversight of the principal investigator, it simply allows a patient to be seen in their home or at another convenient location (such as school or workplace) – delivering the trial to their doorstep.

Digital solutions can also be utilized to enhance the patient experience and encourage retention and engagement, and it has clear synergies with HTS. Some visits need a physician assessment that does not require an examination. In other cases, a home Healthcare Professional (HCP) may be concerned about a patient and need a medical opinion, which can be accessed on the spot through a telehealth service. There are numerous scenarios where HCPs and technology can and do work well together.

Ultimately, by making clinical trials accessible, more convenient and less time-consuming for patients, the trials themselves will become more efficient, easier to manage (with less time needed on recruitment activities) and, crucially, will include the real-world data the FDA and other global health agencies are looking for and potentially accelerating approval times. Delivering trials quite literally to the patients’ door, we can bring more critical therapies and medicines to market, faster.

Learn more about MRN’s Home Trial Solutions here.

References

  1. Remote Work Preferences: Statistics on Employee Choices in 2024, December 2024. https://www.matsh.co/en/statistics-on-remote-work-preferences/, Last Accessed April 2025.
  2. Statista Research Department. E-commerce delivery preferences worldwide, March 2025. https://www.statista.com/topics/12456/e-commerce-delivery-preferences-worldwide/#topicOverview, Last Accessed April 2025.
  3. UK & global virtual learning statistics 2022, https://www.ciphr.com/infographics/virtual-learning-statistics, Last Accessed April 2025.
  4. Martin, A. Study Shows Caregivers, Patients Prefer Hospital-At-Home Model, October 2024. https://homehealthcarenews.com/2024/10/study-shows-caregivers-patients-prefer-hospital-at-home-model/, Last Accessed April 2025.
  5. Venditi, B. Visualizing the Global Population in 2035, by Generation, January 2025. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/visualizing-the-global-population-in-2035-by-generation/, Last Accessed April 2025.
  6. Safavi, K. Today’s consumers reveal the future of healthcare, February 2019. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/health/todays-consumers-reveal-future-healthcare, Last Accessed April 2025.
  7. FDA Podcast. Real-World Data and Evidence Generation with Dr. Hilary Marston, August 2024. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/news-events-human-drugs/real-world-data-and-evidence-generation-dr-hilary-marston, Last Accessed April 2025.
  8. European Medicines Agency. Real-world evidence. https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/about-us/how-we-work/data-regulation-big-data-other-sources/real-world-evidence, Last Accessed April 2025.

 

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