Communication Best Practices for Enhanced Site Engagement

We've had some really interesting questions coming in today on the webinar. We're going to actually take some time now to go through those additional questions and answers as we do not have time to complete them during the during the webinar session.

Perfect. So, I'll get us going with questions, Brian, first question and this is we've combined two questions here. So: You've shared some interesting examples of successful engagement in the recruitment phase. But is this also applicable to sites and studies as they move into maintenance or follow up stages on a trial? And then related: Any communication best practises for later stages in the trial? So, for example database lock and after site closure?

Yeah, I think these are excellent questions. Certainly, some of the example use cases we have in the Communication Workshop content and also in the playbook do reference I suppose around the recruit area. But the same principles can be applied at any stage of the trial if we take for example a study that's moving into post recruitment or that maintenance phase, there's important communication that needs to be shared with sites.

And again, you want that oversight, you want to know if they've read it. We have teams using that across the different therapy areas. Back to the question around database lock - It is very a key there I suppose.

We're working with the team a number of teams at the moment where I'm working with them, and they have like a countdown clock ahead of database lock. So, one month out, two weeks out from database Lock - initially sending a reminder alert to the sites around that important date at a local level, and then in addition to that using survey in some cases, to find if there are challenges around meeting those database lock, and what they are. So again, the use cases and the examples are very applicable in those stages.

Perfect, very clear. Thanks, Brian.

How do you obtain the site open rate data and how about those communications that are pushed to a site sponsor report? So, I'll maybe have a shot at answering this one. So, site open rate is a metric that's unique to Teckro.

When communications are sent on our platform, site staff receive an e-mail notification or a push notification with a snippet of the communication. But that communication must be opened in the Teckro app.

So assume the communication is sent out, you receive it, you get the push notification, you tap, and you read the communication in the Teckro app. And based on those type of activities, we're able to then measure how many sites received the communication versus how many sites opened the communication and that creates the site open rate metric.

Our understanding is that sponsor portals don't provide this type of metric. Nor is it possible to measure open rate on emails that you would send through outlook, for example. We feel it's a critical metric because without this it's really hard to get a sense of how good or bad your communications are, and which sites are engaging with your communications or not. So, if you can't measure, then you can't improve, essentially.

We did have some data in the presentation related to e-mail open rates. Now these are industry metrics. We get these from reputable third parties that specialize in in e-mail delivery, so only they can measure it. It's not something that you could for example, can get out of outlook when you send out an e-mail to your sites.

So, I hope that helps.

Perfect. So, the next question then is: For the survey, did you provide the answer selections?

Yeah, I can take that. So, with Survey, when the study teams, either global or local, are sending out a survey through Teckro direct to the team or to the sites - in the creation of the survey, they'll create the questions.

There will be the option to add those action buttons where you can have the answers available. Most teams would, I suppose, work with us to create templates at certain stage of the study. So then, the template for the survey is already created with the answers. When the site receives it, the site will see the answers available. Some teams do add in an “Other” or “additional comment” answer if they need to gather extra information that can't be gathered by a simple ‘1of 4’ answers.

Perfect.

In the presentation, we had some visuals that were linking out to different places and one of the questions was: Where are you linking to? Where are you housing your links? Do you have a shared space?

So the visual is related to the Teckro experience and in the Teckro experience, one of the things that's key is that our content and communication are completely interconnected.

Everything is designed to keep sites active in the app, which in turn leads to engagement in the study.

Specifically in the presentation, we had some examples where the communications were linking to inclusion/exclusion criteria.

So, what's actually happening there is that when you send the communication on our platform, you can pick where within the protocol you would like to link to. So, it's very much an integrated experience and when site staff receive that communication and click that link.

They'll be taken directly into the section of the Protocol, whether it's inclusion criteria, scheduled activities. And all of that is based on the version that the site should be assigned to as well, right? So, it's very much a version control solution.

Study teams can also link to third party websites or systems. So, for example EDC/IRT system or even a webinar.

Or you can also have an additional option to, allow the recipient to ask a question using our platform so sites have a dedicated channel to reach out if they need support.

Next question for you, Brian. So: Some sites are harder to engage than others or have extra challenges, for example - research naive, how do you ensure awareness and engagement with these sites?

Yeah, I think that's a very valid question. So, for a lot of the teams, if they're working at a global level, it's ensuring, I suppose we can recommend Teckro best practise for the engagement of your sites and particularly for the engagement and awareness of those sites - of Teckro. The good news is for a lot of the sites, they may be utilizing Teckro on one or more studies. So, for them it's just an extra study appearing in their study list and it's very simple. But for newer sites, if we take research naïve, other sites - it's ensuring there's awareness of Teckro. And this is really key, I suppose, in the communications that are sent from the study team – from global to local and then from local to site, where for example, we are very familiar with joining meetings such as investigator meetings, whether virtually or in person, supporting awareness of the SIV, and also then supporting their local trainings.

Just to answer the second part of the question. When they were talking about “is it harder to engage sites?” - certainly there's a lot of turnover in the industry at the moment. CRAs in particular and also site staff. The continued awareness is important. Just like with any technology you want to make sure sites are aware of the key benefits so they can see the benefit of getting those updates in a quick and easy way. Also, the ability for them to have somewhere to reach out through the channels, it's highlighting those benefits to those sites, particularly maybe in the maintenance phase as teams are turning over.

Perfect. Thanks Brian. OK. So: How many languages are in the Teckro app?

Yeah. So, I can take that. So, at the moment, Teckro is utilized in all countries across the globe or in the majority of countries you’d see in a global country list. The communication functionality that we talked through, so if we call that Alerts - that supports the majority of languages that people are communicating with through technology.

So, it's greater than 30 plus languages are supported there. This allows the teams from a global team to communicate with their sites in that chosen language if they so wish. And I suppose a lot of teams might use English, but then you do have the flexibility in that for people to use Spanish, Italian, French - if they're in those specific countries and that's for the Alerts and the communication.

For the Content piece. So that's your study documents, you can access and search those on Teckro, we can host the documents in any language, and those documents will be visible. For the Search features they can be enabled for English, Japanese and Chinese documents.

And that's where we've seen the need, particularly in Japanese and Chinese sites. The ability for them to access Teckro, search in their keyboard, in their own characters, and retrieve the answers from those local documents has proved very successful in securing site engagement on those studies.

Perfect. There's a question here, Brian, that builds on the answer you've just provided. So: Do you see any regional variation of trends in site engagement?

So, from a data perspective, for the most part, we don't see significant regional differences in site engagement. We've over 70 different countries, site countries, across the world on the platform. The factor that, Brian touched on this, the factor that typically influences site engagement, is the communication approach.

And we see that studies that have you know geographies across the world that follow a consistent engagement approach do see healthy consistent engagement across those regions.

So, one of the recommendations I guess is, if you are struggling with site engagement in a specific region, is to consider localization and to translate. The content of your communications for those markets. Typically, on Teckro we do see higher open rates and site engagement on communications that are localized, so it’s definitely worth discussing with your local teams, right? And trying to understand if that’s an important, should that be an important part of your site engagement approach overall.

So the last question, Brian, and I'll leave this one to you: How does site engagement and best practises vary across different phases of trial? So, for example, phase one versus phase three?

Yeah, that's a very important question. And I suppose it kind of links back to the earlier question when someone asks about the different stages of the trial, does site engagement vary or what's the best practices there. The answer is yes. So, site engagement best practices will vary in how you apply Teckro best practice to get enhanced site engagement.

If we take phase one trials - items that are happening there that won't be happening in phase two or three - maybe cohort management and maybe there's dose escalation. So, we have teams who are using Teckro to alert their sites around cohorts opening and closing - so that effective, timely communication.

In some cases that might be slot allocation, which requires even faster communication.

They're utilizing outbound communications through Teckro alerts to alert the sites of an open slot, and then the site has the ability to access a channel to alert the team that they have a patient suitable for that slot and then the global team can alert all sites again, to say that that slot is now closed or been filled. So there are ways in which you can utilize Teckro for each of those trials. That’s an example for phase one, phase two and three we covered in some of the slides that we utilized already, and certainly in phase four, it's just ensuring effective communication direct to your sites.

Brilliant. Thanks very much, Brian. I think that's all the questions covered.

Yeah, I think so. Look, thank you for everyone who submitted their questions during the webinar and also for these additional follow up questions that we’ve cover now. Now if there are additional questions that come to mind, certainly as we mentioned, you can reach out to me and any members of the program team to schedule a one-to-one workshop where we can look at your trial, your team's questions and apply Teckro best practise to ensure enhanced engagement. So thanks, Ger. Thanks everyone. Enjoy your day.

Thanks everyone. Thank you.