From Planning to Execution: Supporting Sites and Patients in Clinical Trials

Scout is on a mission to alleviate logistical and financial burdens for patients globally. Courtney Dodge, Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives at Scout, shares insights on Scout’s recent partnership with SCRS and practical advice for sponsors and sites to strengthen patient-centered strategies and reduce participation barriers. Learn how Scout is driving patient-centric strategies through personalized travel solutions, financial support, and meeting logistics. 

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Jimmy Bechtel 0:00

Welcome to SCRS Talks provided by the Society for Clinical Research Sites. Thank you for joining us as we explore the latest insights, trends, and innovations shaping clinical research today. I'm Jimmy Bechtel, the Vice President of Site Engagement with the Society, and today I'm joined by Courtney Dodge, the Executive Director of Strategic Initiatives with Scout, and we're here to talk about how Excited we are that Scout has joined and is one of our newest additions to the SCRS Global Impact Partnership program. Before we jump into the topic, Courtney, I'd love to learn a little bit more about you and hear some of what Scout does.

Courtney Dodge 0:37

Sure. Thanks so much for having me today, Jimmy. It's a thrill to be part of SCRS now. I think that's a huge step forward for us as an organization, but really help cement Scout globally and, and use the footprint that you all have already established. I have been in the industry for over 20 years having worked in the CRO space on the site side with biotech to really kind of run the gamut and have the opportunity here at Scout to pull all of those all of that background together to focus solely on the site and the patient and how we can serve those sites and patients and really help alleviate burden establish what We truly feel is important and ultimately that's the patient. So equipping the site to serve their patient best. So Scout has been we're approaching our 30th anniversary, which is really exciting. Scout's been in the industry for several decades, and which I find as such a tremendous milestone, and recently appointed a new CEO, growing really, really quickly. So a very exciting time to be part of Scout and joining the Global Impact Partnership.

Jimmy Bechtel 1:43

That's excellent. We're excited to have you all Courtney especially a company with an established tenure in the industry. It's going to be a great addition to the program. So speaking of additions to the program, I'd love to start us off by learning from you maybe why you were inspired to join the global impact partnership. And I know there's ties, as you had mentioned, and alignment with your mission and value. So maybe lean into that a little bit, too.

Courtney Dodge 2:09

Sure, absolutely. So being part of the Global Impact Partnership that you all have established really ties into what Scout is, our mission is helping patients get to wherever they need to go and alleviating any type of logistical burden, financial burden. We know that oftentimes study participants are not just Always healthy volunteers participating in a study. These are patients who want access to clinical research as treatment or clinical research as an alternative to maybe the exhaustive efforts that they've had thus far. So Scout allows patients to be anywhere that the research is so we're moving any type of travel burden and ensuring that there's no financial risk or no financial burden to the participation in that study, which ultimately helps the site when the site knows that the sponsor has invested in the recruitment piece of allowing for patients to get where they need to go and eliminating that burden of "Is this going to cost me out of pocket to be able to participate in this study?" Eliminating that burden from the patient's mind really helps the site recruit and give the patient that, that ease. Doing this on a global scale is really what Scout's all about. Moving patients wherever they need to go, and globally we operate in over a hundred countries and have moved patients around have helped patients with the logistics of ensuring they're at their visits when they're supposed to be, that they're quickly reimbursed for any potential out of pocket expense they may have, and that the global footprint of this is really at the core of who we are. And in what we're able to offer is helping alleviate any of that patient burden, ultimately leading to more successful enrollment at the site.

Jimmy Bechtel 4:01

Thanks, Courtney. And that's exactly right where where my mind goes to is the patients, which is at the center of what you all do and how that ties directly to the site. So it's great to see you all drawing those really important lines from you as a very important service provider, a truly value add service provider in the industry. to the patients, but how that affects and augments the sites in a lot of different ways. So it's great to have you part of that and make sure that you all are involving the sites. Conversely, then in the conversations that you're having around the value that you can bring to them as an organization and another critical piece in the the execution of clinical trials and bringing medicines ultimately then to those patients. So Scout offers, To your point, a lot of personalized support through that travel expense coverage and reimbursement. So how does this, I guess, people first approach impact retention and engagement throughout the trial? Maybe talk to the outcomes of the positive effects that your services can have on the community? The again, retention and engagement of patients in the trial.

Courtney Dodge 5:07

Oh, that's a great question. So it's really a personalized services that help with all of the travel. It's how we're looking at this, each individual patient, meeting them where they are, that need that they may have for that specific study. Maybe they're a single car family. And they need that very personalized approach of just getting to and from the site. It could potentially be that this is a study that involves a child, that both, it's a two person assist. We can help coordinate whatever they may need in that situation and arrange for a caregiver. It's that meeting the patient where they are, those personalized services that really set us apart. there is no request Too big or too small that we are not able to meet so really digging into every unique situation is what we do really well and having a significant impact on that patient helps them stay engaged, helps the site alleviate that site burden. They're not worried about the logistics of the reimbursement or how my patient's going to get there and all of the details of how we make sure that it's one less thing they have to worry about. Having that very strong focus on the support of the patient helps equip the site to have fewer dropouts, longer retention in the study, smoother operations altogether and and really higher quality output. So being able to personalize what we do and meeting that patient's needs on every study is at the core of everything that we try to accomplish.

Jimmy Bechtel 6:38

That's great, Courtney. It's so good and refreshing to hear the focus being how, again, going back to that statement I made earlier, how you can augment the sites and provide the sites with some of that burden relief that we know exists around this. We hear all the time at SCRS, how challenging it is for some of these clinical trials for the patients to come for them to be part of the program and to really participate in the clinical trial ultimately when they have all these burdens personally that sometimes preclude and prevent them from participating as especially when you look at things like visit windows, right? I know it's never a good idea to reschedule your doctor's appointment and keep pushing it out, but you can do that. And that's not the case in clinical trials. We have visit windows for a reason. And when patients have things come up or they're unable to meet those visit windows because of their child care, their travel, time off work, et cetera, et cetera. I'm sure you guys are more aware of all the different scenarios than we are. It can become a tremendous burden for the site. So it's awesome to see that there's an organization so focused on how we can enable the sites to enable the patients then to be part of that. I know that you also offer virtual and in person clinical meeting planning as part of the services that you that you all do. Again, augmenting that I think it's a very natural progression from the work that you do helping patients to helping you know, the execution of some of the meetings. So, would you mind expanding a little bit on that service and how that maximizes That site and sponsor collaboration.

Courtney Dodge 8:08

Sure. So this is really, how the whole company began is the attention to detail in our end to end meeting planning, really the scheduling and execution of our meetings, the logistics of everything that we do is bar none. We do this incredibly well. Our team are such great executors, both at in person and virtual meetings, but I like to continue to emphasize that we all know virtual is a world we live in. However, that in person- everyone being in the same room, building the relationships, hearing the same message at the same time and. Idea sharing, information sharing when you're all together. It's such an effective communication tool. I know that pulling, you know, away from sites and attending all of these in person investigators meetings is not always the easiest thing to accomplish, but it's so incredibly effective when done well, and we can pull those logistics together top to bottom to ensure your presentation goes well. The actual meeting surroundings, the way you feel, how we can pull everything together, just to really ensure that everyone associated with the study is hearing all of the messaging to execute the study really well. And understanding that how we're treating you at that meeting, how we're engaging you, what we're presenting to you at that meeting is exactly how we care for our patients as well. So everything that you're experiencing during those investigators meetings, whether they're in person or virtual, is exactly how we treat our patients to make sure that every detail is covered, that all of the logistics are taken care of, and that you can focus on what matters, and that's, those are the details of the trial. So our meetings team is just an incredible group of individuals who cross every T, dot every I to ensure that the information that's being shared during that meeting is accurate. exactly what you need to lead to the successful execution of the study.

Jimmy Bechtel 10:02

Well, that's great. And it's, I hope, obvious for our listeners that the, the lines are clearly very easy to draw. And it's great to see kind of cross functional, you know, Hey, we do well in this space. So let's expand into this space and offer that similar high level, like you said, almost concierge level service to not only the patients, but to other players in the industry as well to help complete that loop and serve similar audiences in that high caliber way. So it's excellent to hear that. That's such a such a strong offering and such a positive service for the industry. So I want to begin to wrap us up here, Courtney. It's been great to learn about you and The Global Impact Partnership Program joining by Scout. So what advice then do you have to give to sponsors and sites who are trying to strengthen their patient censored strategies, especially in the areas of travel and financial support, to speak to the points that I know are so important to you all, improving clinical trial outcomes and retention of patients on studies?

Courtney Dodge 11:04

No. I think that was really important to make sure that our sponsors are very cognizant of early on in the planning process is to plan ahead. So something Jimmy that we know. And came up in. Our global and site solution summit was presented. Oftentimes sites are requesting travel and reimbursement in their contracts and budgets. So this is a need. This is an absolute need that sites are looking for. They want to make sure that they're eliminating any potential barrier for their patients. So my advice to sponsors would be to plan ahead to ensure that when you're developing the budget for the study, you're including the costs of ground transportation, lodging, potential airfare, reimbursement for out of pocket, if, if a patient needs to miss work, we need to make sure that we're reimbursing them for that, those lost wages. And we want to make sure that we're making this as patient centric, but just keep in mind. An ease of participation in the study for the patient and additionally Scout is trying to achieve this by partnering with various other areas of our industry to make sure that we, we are actually doing this. We're being patient centric. We took a call very seriously that SCRS put out at Global Site Solutions Summit by reducing our training burden. We want to make sure that training for the site is, is relieved so that they can then participate in the portal, use the portal to take advantage of all those services that we're hoping that sponsors put into that study. We've partnered with Sabai, Trial Equity Dr. Fox, And CPRN just ensuring that we're doing everything that we can do to help equip all of our sites and patients. And so the advice there would be as a sponsor, just make sure that in that budget, we're including everything that that patient needs to successfully participate in that study. And once that's done, we know that we can get that patient wherever they need to be to participate in the study that they so deserve. Desperately need to participate in. So removing the barrier of that worry is what helps us all lead to successful trial execution.

Jimmy Bechtel 13:20

That's great, Courtney. And it's a really excellent place. I think for us to end our conversation on today, one of the things that I took away from that is awareness. And I think that's a really important job that Scout plays in this. sphere in this space, in this niche, if, if you will around making sure that sites and sponsors are aware of these needs and what they are and really advocating for and on behalf of patients and on behalf of sites in a lot of ways, I'm sure back to the sponsors and CROs to let them know the challenges that might exist with a particular trial for patients. patients being able to attend and join those visits and participate in the trial. I think that's a really important thing and something that I took away from your statement there. So thank you for sharing that. And thank you for being here today. Thank you for joining the GIP program. We're really excited to have you. It's a unique space. You're a unique organization and we are Really excited for what we're going to be able to do together having you as representatives as part of the G. I. P. Program. So again, thank you. And thank you for being with us today.

Courtney Dodge 14:22

Thank you so much for having me, and I'm thrilled that we're part of the program. We know that globally we really can have an impact and we hope that that everyone has been able to learn about that today. So really appreciate your time and having us.

Jimmy Bechtel 14:35

Absolutely. I would like to also make sure that everyone listening doesn't forget to explore other site focused resources made available on our website, myscrs. org, in addition to SCRS Talks made available throughout the year, all of our other various publications and webinar Opportunities as well. You'll also find a wealth of knowledge and content and details for upcoming engagements and connection opportunities like our site solution summits with various partners like Scout and others that we talked with today. Thanks again for listening, tuning in and until next time.