Signant Health Releases Findings From “State of eConsent” Survey

Signant Health, released the findings from its latest “State of eConsent” report, highlighting the sentiments, successes, and challenges of eConsent practitioners around the world.  

The survey presents noteworthy findings relating to the global experiences in implementing eConsent in 2019.  Eighty-five percent of sponsor respondents indicated that their organizations will adopt eConsent for some studies over the next 12 months; with 71% indicating adoption is likely to extend to the majority of studies in the next three years and beyond.  A key finding was the increasing importance of connecting eConsent platforms to other enterprise-wide eClinical systems, and the importance of site support when rolling out the technology to inexperienced sites.  

Signant Health began surveying those involved in the delivery of eConsent in 2017, releasing their findings to the industry in order to support the adoption of eConsent globally. Understanding the features of solutions that most impact the improvement of patient comprehension and patient and site experience helps to focus ongoing development of these solutions at Signant Health.

Survey responseswere primarily from sponsors and CROs that have hands-on experience with implementing eConsent or were working with teams directly involved in its planning and implementation. The survey was not specific to any particular eConsent solution or provider.  The profiles of respondents covered a wide range of therapeutic areas as well as functional groups including executives, procurement, clinical operations, data management, innovation, IT and clinical sciences across North America, Europe, and Asia. 

Other key insights from the survey include:

• eConsent adoption rates by study phase

• Experiences and feedback on operational services provided by eConsent solution providers

• The current features offered by eConsent systems that are considered to have a high impact on patients’ comprehension and engagement.

• Trends to integrate consent data with other eClinical systems, for example EDC systems. 

• Key market trends and perspectives on eConsent deployment in clinical trials by early adopters. 

• Areas of improvement, level of satisfaction, and remaining challenges for eConsent solutions and implementation. 

• Business drivers behind the decisions on whether or not to implement eConsent. 

• The future of eConsent and global adoption rates

Bill Byrom, VP Product Strategy and Innovation, at Signant Health noted that, “These findings are in line with our own experiences with the global deployment of eConsent studies. The industry at large, believes in eConsent’s ability to improve the experience and quality of the consenting process for everyone involved in trials, especially patients. What we’re seeing now is that people are starting to integrate their eConsent platforms within other existing eClinical systems, ensuring that they get important efficacies and simplification in site workflow, and can access accurate and up-to-date data, metrics, and snapshots of their study progress and performance around the world.”