Addressing Data and Patient Retention Challenges

In a recent video interview with Applied Clinical Trials, Rachael Higgins, chief commercial officer, PicnicHealth, discussed the company’s recently released 2025 Annual State of Observational Research Report. She highlighted some of the key findings including the persistence of more traditional research methods as well as how patient retention and incomplete data are creating challenges for the industry.

ACT: How can industry address some of the challenges holding it back from moving towards the future such as incomplete data and patient retention?

Higgins: I think for companies, the life science partners that we do have, I think they truly need to not only say that they're open to things like virtual trials, but actually to be able to embrace them and actually take that leap to be able to do more of that, because that really is the only way to truly do things like getting access to the universal patient record by having patients consent directly, allowing you to get access to their medical record. It is a way that's no burden, or less burden to the patient, and then also give something back to the patient. Things like allowing patients to get access to their medical records and to be able to share their medical records, to be involved in the research, things like that are really going to certainly help them be able to scale up in the ways that they need to be able to do. When you think about all of our customers who are out there and the challenges that they have, I think they're all solvable. I think it's just getting them comfortable in the fact that the old way doesn't have to be the only way, right? There are certainly many ways to skin a cat, and I think these new ways certainly have proven to be effective. I think, again, it's just taking that leap. And then certainly, when you think about where the future is actually going to, the R&D costs are rising tremendously year over year. You see it in the news constantly with our life science partners having to make very significant cuts with not only their staff, thinking about their pipeline, what it is they're going to do, so they have to do more with less, and again, leveraging some of these types of models, virtual opportunities, leveraging direct connection to the patients, leveraging AI, that's going to be able to address their problems, which is going to allow them to scale in the future, which is really what everybody wants, which, again, at the end of the day, is going to be able to bring medicines to patients, which is really what we all want.