Supporting Sites from a Lab Perspective

In a recent interview with Applied Clinical Trials, Kelli Aufderheide, director, laboratory decentralized trial solutions, IQVIA Laboratories, discussed the benefits of central and local labs for clinical trials. Central labs offer harmonized test menus, standardized data collection, and global reach, ensuring consistent results across labs. Local labs, often co-located with investigator sites, provide quick turnaround times crucial for urgent patient care. In a world of complex clinical trials, stakeholders should support sites by focusing on planning, training, and incorporating feedback to streamline processes and reduce manual work.

A transcript of Aufderheide’s conversation with ACT can be found below.

ACT: Given the complexity of today’s trials and site staff being overloaded, what can trial sponsors and CRO partners do to ensure sites are supported in their work?

Aufderheide: I think the two key perspectives or pieces for me are planning and training. If we are planning for incorporating the voice of the customer, which in this case is the site, I know as a central lab, we do collect the site voice of customer a lot to ensure that, with all of the technologies that they're using and all of the various aspects of a clinical trial, that we're doing everything we can to make their life as easy as possible, and then just ensuring that the trial design and the way that we are designing all of the supplies that the sites are using, is as easy and straightforward as possible for them. The complexity of clinical trials doesn't really lend itself to that in some cases, so we have to get creative, but making sure that in the cases where it is a little bit more complex that where we are doing that training, and providing all of the documentation upfront that the sites need to know what is expected of them in collecting those samples and treating their patients.