Collect data during site visits, between visits and through remote virtual visits.
Virtual Visits is a communication module to use for Site-to-Participants communication during clinical trials.
About Virtual Visits
Trial Online provides a complete suite of products to run clinical trials with total flexibility.
Using the Trial Online Virtual Visit Telehealth solution gives participants the security and convenience of participating from their home, while the investigator safely monitors symptoms and tests upon collecting data.
Virtual Visits allow the investigator to observe the participant, instruct them to complete assessments, and record their observations directly into the EDC system.
Virtual Visits is when a clinical trial visit takes place remotely with the investigator and participant in different geographical locations, connecting via the Trial Online system and ePRO app.
Participant Centricity
with Virtual Visits
It is not uncommon that participants may have a fair distance of travel to attend each planned visit. Overcoming challenges like distance, while ensuring the health and safety of participants enrolling in your critical trial, can easily be tackled with our Virtual Visits tool.
Virtual Visits increase compliance as participants are more likely to attend a video call than having to travel far distances. This, in turn, reduces any reimbursement costs offered to enrolled participants as travel expenses don’t have to be settled.
If physical visits cannot be excluded, it is possible to run a hybrid trial where visits are conducted both physically and virtually online.
How to conduct
Virtual Visits
Trial site staff can access participants participating in the trial through ordinary lists in Trial Online’s EDC or ePRO system. Virtual visits are scheduled and calls are initiated by site staff directly to the participant’s mobile device through the downloaded ePRO app. All prior chat history with the participant is visible which allows for any site staff member to quickly ascertain the participant’s condition and any concerns from prior virtual visits.
The entire visit is conducted in 5 simple steps:
Participants download the ePRO application to their iOS or Android mobile device.
Trial investigators begin a scheduled Virtual Visit by starting a video or voice call to the participant's mobile device through the Trial Online ePRO app.
The video call option allows clinicians from anywhere in the world to directly communicate with a trial participant, monitoring the collection of data, for example, temperature or breath examination, under direct supervision and direction of the clinician.
Enabling video ensures that data is collected correctly and the test is conducted appropriately while results can be shown through the camera in real-time.
Participants can also take images, for example, skin issues, and send them through the chat alongside the video call. All images uploaded are saved for later reference.
The investigator can evaluate the condition and advise next steps including if an in-person consultation needs to be scheduled, as well as add a note to the participant’s eCRF.
Text Messaging
Text messaging allows participant and trial investigators to communicate alongside video and voice calls, and information regarding the trial can be text messaged to all participating trial participants.
Features:
- Both participants and site staff can send messages to each other.
- Trial participants cannot message one another, only the site.
- The text messages can include pictures or videos taken with the camera or files stored on a computer or phone. This is specifically useful if the investigator needs to send instructions to the participant, or the participant needs to show something, like a symptom, to the investigator.
- Outside of scheduled virtual visits, site staff can send participants information regarding their medication(s) including instructions, and procedures to measure/use with medical devices.
- Participants can also conveniently and quickly message any required proof of intake for medication as well as any visible changes or symptoms to the investigator.
- The transmitted pictures and videos can be stored in other systems if required.
Benefits of Trial Online's Virtual Visits
The benefits stem beyond continuity of clinical trials during travel restrictions, as Virtual Visits also allow pharmaceutical companies to decrease costs by minimizing travel budgets and offering virtual visits as a regular procedure for new clinical trials.
All prior chat history with the participant is visible to site staff before and during Virtual Visits for reference.
Follow up appointments are scheduled and participants receive notifications as well as reminders of upcoming Virtual Visits in the ePRO app.
To ensure no messages sent from participant to site are left unanswered it is possible for sites to configure message/information at site level for non-office hours, including replies to participants about opening hours and re-directing participants to other contact paths in emergency situations.
Virtual Visits work alongside electronic data collection as well as ePRO/eCOA clinical trials and post-market studies.
A full audit trail is available.
