ProofPilot‘s Playbook: Innovation in Clinical Research

Joseph Kim, Chief Strategy Officer at ProofPilot, shares the challenges and triumphs of implementing innovation in the clinical research field. Joseph highlights lessons learned and insights from ProofPilot's Innovation Playbook on the importance of problem-solving and collaborative value creation. Discover practical tips for finding funds, navigating tight timelines, and bringing innovation to life! 

Transcript

Jimmy Bechtel: 0:01

Greetings and thank you for being part of the Society for Clinical Research Sites on SCRS Talks. I'm your host, Jimmy Bechtel, the Vice President of Site Engagement. Get ready to dive into a space where we discuss pressing clinical research industry issues, celebrate noteworthy achievements, and foster a deeper connection within the research community. This is the space to amplify voices and perspectives that shape The landscape of clinical research. Today we have Joe Kim, the chief strategy officer with ProofPilot here to share some of the innovative things that ProofPilot is doing when it comes to clinical trial technology and workload on the sites. Joe, it's great to have you with us here today. Really excited to jump into this topic, but I'd like to first start off with learning a little bit more about you.

Joseph Kim: 0:50

Hey, Jimmy. Great. Thanks for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I have a kind of an interesting background. I came to clinical research as a third career after a degree in molecular biology. My first job was as a social worker, and I was working with behaviorally disturbed kids, disadvantaged areas. I taught high school science for a couple of years and I eventually made my way to clinical research doing data review on HIV studies of all things and after 24 years here I am at ProofPilot. It's been two years now, super excited to be back on this side of things. And that is the vendor side after doing a lot of innovation work and garden variety trial management from the sponsor side.

Jimmy Bechtel: 1:31

Excellent. Joe.. I'm excited to dive into some of that innovation work. I know that's been, uh, For as long as I've known you, which has been a number of years now, innovation has always been something that you've been seen as one of the inspiring leaders in this industry. So that's great. And I do want to talk a little bit about that innovation playbook, that ProofPilot recently released, really focusing on and highlighting that clinical research professionals often have really great innovative ideas, but kind of struggle to take them and bring them into action. So let's talk about some of the common challenges that they face when it comes to executing on innovation and why that playbook is something that can be helpful when it comes to addressing those challenges.

Joseph Kim: 2:12

Yeah, sure. I think it's important to just summarize the, the first attempt at innovation and how I actually screwed that up. So that's actually rendered in a fun little cartoon, but essentially what I was trying to do was get out of the mundane task of writing data clarification forms, which I think is a, is a bear for both sponsors and sites. So I created this like little matrix of language so I could easily shortcut descriptions of data clarification, say, when the med history didn't match the physical exam, right? These things are just written from scratch over and over again. So this is 1999, mind you. And it was a really great tool. I saved a ton of time, but I didn't test it with anybody. I didn't vet it with anybody, least of all the sites who were the recipients of the data clarification form. And so I was churning out these really fast sets of forms, but they were kind of, they had all these errors in it. And so the site actually was returning them and it went to my boss and said like, what is wrong with Joe? He's actually writing nonsense. And so I've learned very quickly a, a number of lessons the hard way, because it was quite embarrassing to be pulled into your boss's office, be given these data clarification forms that didn't actually make sense because I was not removing the placeholders at any rate. Look at the cartoon. It's really funny. But that first lesson was really important, which was like the idea of innovation is not something you just do in the basement. And it's not like you're working on a light bulb and just trying to make that work. In clinical research it's a people business, and there's just so much interdependency there. So the first hard lesson was trying to go it alone. That whole adage of like, going alone fast and going together farther, you're not even going to go alone fast. You're going to go, you're going to run into a dead end or a brick wall, you're going to stub your toe pretty quickly. So lesson number one, definitely work with your end users, your stakeholders, if you're going to think of a new idea to make your life easier.

Jimmy Bechtel: 4:08

That's great, Joe. I appreciate the sentiments there. Right. And we often hear that some of the best lessons that we can give are based on lessons that we learned ourselves the hard way. So it's great to hear that a lot of this was founded in some of your experience with that and the challenges. And why having some, you don't know what you don't know advice in the form of playbooks, but like this, I think is really, really valuable for those that are looking to bring innovation to life and help them come at it from a different perspective. You emphasized in some of the resources, the importance of finding funds to initialize projects and ideas. We know and talk about all the time that money is oftentimes a challenge at the site level, particularly when it comes to doing things that are outside of executing clinical trials. Maybe share with us some of the unconventional sources of funds and how networking particularly can play a critical role in what you're able to do to bring these innovations to life.

Joseph Kim: 5:11

Yeah, for sure. As I've been working, as I mentioned, most of my career has been on the sponsor side of things, but the networking, not just in the marketplace of other vendors and suppliers and partners, but within the company is so important. There's so many shared value opportunities there that either other departments in your company will be open to or certainly vendors. You just have to get really creative about like how that money can come to pass and whether that money is something that you need up front or is it something that you can generate on the back end. So, for example, if I'm working at a pharma company A, and maybe IT has an initiative where they're funded, but they don't have a good substrate, quote, unquote, to actually get that idea off and running, the more you're well networked within your pharma company, the more of those connections you can make and find common ground, and actually some departments will be happy to fund your idea because it aligns, at an arm's length, but maybe close enough to what they're trying to do on the whole. The way pharma companies are budgeted, you do these things a year in advance, and then the next year rolls around, and you might have this money sitting there that you just couldn't sort of formulate an idea around. And so if you are well networked within your own company, you can find these, these latent funds hanging around. Same with the vendors, actually. Vendors are more likely than not to be creative with how revenue could be generated either in the short, medium or long term. It doesn't always have to be. Hey, let me hire you and then pay you for whatever you did. There are co-funding opportunities, co-investment opportunities with sweat equity, quote unquote. And then maybe there's an attractive sort of revenue model. You can take advantage of on the back end of things. So it's really just about understanding where shared value can happen and finding where there's mutual motivation to get something done and usually you'll more often than not, I found many different creative ways to find money when you didn't have any or enough.

Jimmy Bechtel: 7:17

That's great, Joe. I, I agree in that it's foundational that you find that shared value and really play into that, right? And, and emphasize the importance of, you want this for this reason, and I want this for this reason. And if we do this together, we can both have positive outcomes related to it, as opposed to what one might view as more traditional, methods of funding, where you're kind of doing the application and they're looking at it from a, from an objective point of view as just simply a good business decision or a good investment in decision. I think if you can take it a step further. and find partners or funding sources or what have you in the form of someone that shares that vision and shares that value. You can in a lot of times find ways for more than just funding. You can find partnership and someone that's trying to do that. And I think that's foundational and it goes, takes it a step further. So I, I think that's really great advice.

Joseph Kim: 8:13

Yep, totally.

Jimmy Bechtel: 8:14

Joe, we know clinical research organizations also often have busy schedules packed day to day with patient visits and clinical trial related activities, et cetera, et cetera, especially for those that are double dipping into research and clinical care. How can some of these professionals navigate those tight timelines and focus on the actions and learning cycles around innovation without overwhelming their existing workload, how do they fit what they're trying to do it from an innovation standpoint into what they are obligated to do when it comes to their standard, I guess their day jobs and is another way of saying it.

Joseph Kim: 8:57

I always like to say there's only eight days in a week. So where are you going to find the time to innovate on top of your day job? It's, it's pretty hard. I think the number one thing is a lot of people love to dream big and I think that's important, but it's impractical because these cycle times for big dreams are often very long and they can a be daunting and if it certainly feels overwhelming. So for innovation cycle times, I like to look at sort of three to six months, right? Those milestones are actually more doable and help you break up a large idea into something smaller. Some people will also get discouraged that, oh my gosh, if we can't do X, Y, and Z, then it's not really the perfect answer, but as they say, perfect is the enemy of good. And it's not how, how far we go. It's where do we even start? And if you can make that first step towards innovation A., you're going to be able to fit it in B. It's going to be less expensive and C., you'll actually get more excitement to keep things moving and get more investment, whether that's from human resources or funding. So don't don't be afraid of just taking the first step. For example, here's one thing that I always hear with regard to technology proliferation. Oh my gosh, everything needs to be API integrated and all on one interoperable platform. Sure, world peace sounds pretty good too, but let's start first, which is how about we sequence technology so that people know what they're doing first, second, and third. And yeah, let's get to interoperability and a global platform, but don't let the difficulty of that vision stop you from taking the first step of just something sensible.

Jimmy Bechtel: 10:37

Yeah, right. Baby steps and trying to make sure that you're not biting off more than you can chew. I think the big vision is valuable, but also then tempering that, like you said, with what's realistic to accomplish in your timeframe and based on your availability, I think is a really important but tough decision that a lot of visionary entrepreneurial or innovative folks struggle with and, and making sure that you're doing the right things and you're prioritizing things in the right way. So I appreciate the perspective there. Joe this conversation has gone quicker than I thought it was going to. I think when you're talking about things like this, that I know we're both passionate about time tends to, to move pretty quickly, but the last question I want to ask is if there was one critical, essential tip that professionals should take away from your insights in the innovation playbook. What would be that one kind of key takeaway or key message, or maybe almost teaser, I guess, for someone who had maybe hasn't heard about this innovation playbook, but might go to find that and more?

Joseph Kim: 11:42

You know what, I see this time and time again and even, even at ProofPilot we have to pull ourselves back and not fall in love with our own solutions. You need to fall in love with the problem. What is the job to be done? As my friend Roland Gossin just recently wrote a little blog on it. The job to be done is what you need to focus on. The problem at hand and how can you solve that? So, for example remember when everyone was talking about blockchain, right? It's pretty cool, but I haven't seen that applied effectively for clinical research conduct, right? But it was all the hype. Now we're talking about generative AI, and we're talking about, even us, digital workflows. The solution, you cannot fall in love with the solution. What are you trying to solve? And it's like, everyone's got a hammer and everything looks like a nail. And when that's the approach to innovation, you fall in love with some technology or some solution. You're going to fail. You need to fall in love with the problem. So for sites you know, our perspective of ProofPilot,is the problem is trials are very complex for sites to run and they're running dozens of them at at a time. What's the best way to simplify the complex, right? Whether that's with some guy in a gorilla suit or digital workflows, like let's not fall in love with the solution. Let's fall in love with the problem. So I think that's the first and foremost, a key takeaway when you're thinking about innovation. And of course, that has to be loaded up with lots of empathy from all the stakeholders who need to touch this. So not everyone's going to be, you know, a hundred percent happy because you have patients, you have sites, you have sponsors and you have technology companies, and they all are trying to find back to the top of what I said, the shared value to make sure we can all execute clinical research with high quality in a cost effective way.

Jimmy Bechtel: 13:30

It's an excellent point, Joe, and a really interesting perspective because I think it does take a little bit of a mindset shift. I would venture to guess that most innovators, most people approaching something want to focus on the problem or rather the solution. They want to understand. And that's their end goal. They want to work towards that. That's what is the resounding message in their head. And I couldn't agree more with what you said. While that is important, and it is great to have that as your North Star, in a lot of ways, focusing on the doable parts, the execution, and how you get to that through solving that problem really can lead you in the right direction. But again, I think it takes a little bit of an interesting kind of mind dedication, path dedication to be able to do that cause I don't feel like that's very intuitive for people that might have kind of an innovative focus. So thank you for, for making that point. And thanks for being here with us today and sharing your knowledge. As really someone that we all consider to be a true innovator and, and of that innovative mindset in the in the industry and sharing some of these insights. I definitely encourage everyone listening who might be interested or might have that innovative mindset as well to check out the playbook that ProofPilot has published. And get even further down the path. I know a lot of people nerd out on the innovation thing. So that's great. But you know, thanks. Thanks again, Joe. It was great to have you. Always good to talk with you and to learn some more from you and, gather your insights into a really important topic in our industry.

Joseph Kim: 15:02

Yeah, thanks for having me, Jimmy. Listen, I've only learned because I've failed a lot, and there's still lots of things that haunt me to this day. But yeah, that helps you, that keeps the motivation going. So thanks for having me. Great to talk to you today.

Jimmy Bechtel: 15:14

Excellent. Thanks again, Joe. As we wrap up, don't forget to explore more site focused resources on our website, myscrs.org. You'll find a wealth of content and publications, plus the opportunity to save your spot for upcoming webinars and SCRS Summits held throughout the year. Thank you for tuning in and we can't wait to have you back for more enriching content until next time.