Clincierge wins 2016 Clinical Informatics News Best Practices award

Clincierge®, a provider of specialized services that increase the patient-centricity of clinical drug development and help remove burdens associated with trial participation, today announced that they have been named a winner of the 2016 Clinical Informatics News Best Practices awards. The company received the award in the category of "Study Startup and Design" in recognition of its efforts related to patient recruitment, support and retention for a rare disease clinical trial. In that study, Clincierge's activities led to a patient dropout rate of less than 5 percent over 22 months, compared to an industry average of 30% across all clinical trials.

The Clinical Informatics News Best Practices awards recognize outstanding examples of applied strategic innovation-partnerships, deployments, and collaborations that manifestly improve the clinical trial process. An expert panel of judges assessed entries looking for solutions that are innovative, and needed in the industry.

"We are pleased to receive this recognition for our efforts to help patients access and remain in clinical trials and to help trial sponsors and clinical research organizations to reduce clinical testing time and cost, as well as maximize the quality of data obtained," said Scott Gray, Clincierge chief executive officer.

Patients and families are increasingly voicing needs for trial designs that are less disruptive to their lives, which address special housing and transportation needs or reduce travel requirements, and which provide assistance and explanations in the patient's own language. Clincierge has developed unique, customizable services and systems that address such issues for patients participating in clinical trials, and companies who have incorporated Clincierge's services have seen increased enrollment and dramatically reduced drop-out rates, leading to lower trial costs and faster study completion.

In the case study reviewed by the judges, Clincierge provided individual patient support services for a rare disease clinical trial, handling the logistics of travel, lodging, transportation and rapid reimbursement of patient out-of-pocket expenses. This included upfront payments of all costs associated with each clinical visit, at an average per-patient cost of $8,400, as well as managing all of the logistics, saving a total of 3500 hours or approximately 32 hours per patient. In order to support this global trial, Clincierge employed 17 Clincierges ("clinical concierge") who collectively speak 20 Languages and support 18 countries.