Bringing Patient Recruitment into Our Digital World
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Jobn D. McAnulty
Bringing Patient Recruitment Into Our Digital World
Senior Vice President and Parlner. Fleishman-Hillard Clinical Trials Division. Kansas City. Missouri
Key Words Clinical trials: Digital strategies: Patient recruitment: M e d i a convergence
Correspondence Address John McAnulty, 2405 Grand Boulevard, Suite 700. Kansas City, MO 64108 (email: John.mcanulty@ peishman.com). Adaptedfrom 'Switching on for Patient Recruitment" presentation. 2008 DIA Conference in Boston
INTRODUCTION The lnternet has changed and will continue to change the way the world communicates. It is dramatically changing the way virtually all industries, companies, organizations, and political candidates get their messages across to their respective audiences. Using the lnternet to sell products and raise awareness of diseases is certainly nothing new to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. More and more of these companies are seeing the value and return on investment in using digital strategies to recruit patients for clinical research studies. Doing so should soon become a standard operating procedure for most recruitment programs. Those that do not include digital strategies in their patient recruitment mix are missing important opportunities to reach their target patient audiences. People worldwide are searching for information on the lnternet about their diseases and disorders. Using sophisticated databases, companies can easily determine how many people are searching for information about a particular disease or therapeutic category for which they are recruiting. This can serve as a baseline of information to decide whether digital strategies make sense. To understand why digital strategies should always be considered for patient recruitment, it
Every day peoplesearch the lntemet, seeking inf m a t i o n , support, and treatment for many different diseases. Digital strategies, such as search engine marketing databases and web design, are effkctive ways to reach potential patients; pharmaceutical and biotechndogy companies who do not indude digital strategies are missing important patient tatgethg opportunities. This artide explows the convergence of dd and new media, and haw new media aflect and will continue to q k c t patient recruitment. Executing a digital stmtegy requires specialized skills, h d edge, and tods to effectively communicate with potential online study participants.
is important to have an understanding of how the Internet is changing the way the world communicates. Currently, 2.4 billion people use the lnternet worldwide (1).More than 73%of North Americans use the lnternet today, compared to 48.1% of Europeans and 15.2%of Asians. But developing countries are fast growing. Between 2000 and 2008. lnternet usage grew by 1,030% in Africa and by 1,176%in the Middle East, as well as 669.3% in Latin America. This compares to only 129.6%growth in North America during the same period (1). Traditional communication strategies for any company or organization include advertising, media relations,
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