What are Decentralised Trials?
Decentralised trials are one of the ingenious ways of adopting technology in the realms of healthcare. It is a process of reducing the participation of patients in visiting checkup centres, clinics, or trial sites. Rather, it introduces and brings to life the kinds of technologies that would accomplish its tasks, like wearable digital devices, patient apps, smartphones, etc. Such alternatives bridge the gap between the patient and the doctor by enabling them to collect the data (virtually) while ensuring steady communication between the two. For instance, Decentralized Trials incorporate the use of telemedicine and mobile healthcare providers, which allows the medical professionals to study the patient while interacting with them.
- Decentralized Trials somehow reduce the financial burden and provide real-time data in less time. It monitors the patient and even streamlines the admission process for them.
- Sometimes, examining a patient might (not limited to) require frequent visits to the sites for collecting the data, whereas decentralised trials try to reduce their costs and help patients get better medication more efficiently.
Virtualization of Decentralized Trial
Decentralized trials have embarked on a journey to make clinical trials more efficient and faster for patients and doctors. In addition, it has transcended the traditional paradigm and involved the use of digital technology in increasing the proportion of trial activities on patients. In light of this, Covid-19 has witnessed a surge in the adoption of such trials and catalysed this technology, which has been done remotely or in patients’ homes. As far as the healthcare system is concerned, this technology has been the biggest boon, especially during the pandemic, when physical distancing was introduced and visits to trial sites were reduced by 80 per cent. On the contrary, it also noted how The number of monthly trials started to decline 50 percent from January 2020 to April 2020, and 60 percent of investigators reported a significant reduction in trial activities in May 2020.
Besides this, even after witnessing disruption, medics quickly preserved the idea of such technology and began to adopt virtual faculties like patient monitoring, videoconferencing, etc.
Fact: In one survey, up to 98 per cent of patients reported satisfaction with telemedicine. In another study, 72 percent of physicians reported similar or better experiences with remote engagement compared with in-person visits.
Benefits of decentralised trials
With the onset of COVID 19, decentralised trials have come to the spotlight and moved beyond the traditional trials. Hence, let us closely look at its benefits
- Real-time communication with patients: unquestionably, effective communication is indeed a need of the hour, especially between doctors and patients. Hence, medics adopt DCTs with ePRO (electronic patient reporting outcome) to ensure smooth communication between the participants. Such technology is adopted to convey or report any issue or symptom, to minimise the degree of missed data points. For instance, telemedicine is yet another effective way, in which individuals can look at their study personnel at their convenience.
- Enriching Data Diversity: Decentralised trials have a way to surpass geographical boundaries and study patients from different backgrounds, ranging from ethnic minorities to those living in remote regions. Regardless of the boundaries, the aim is to support clinical trial participation and collect the patient’s data to help them with the required results and medical examination.
- Improved Patient Recruitment: Decentralised trials have a way to improve the recruitment as well as the retention of participants. Undeniably, successful retention is the ability to keep the patients (in study) intact, engaged, and motivated until its completion. The problems of the patients have to be carefully addressed and dealt with. If there is an increase in the problem, then it might lead to frequent visits to the trial sites. Also, the trial must adopt digital technology while preserving strict standards for patient safety.
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