An Update on Site Relationship Management (SRM) Initiatives

Yesterday, Beth Harper MBA, president, Clinical Performance Partners presented on the panel for the Clinical Research/Clinical Supplies track “Site Relationship Management (SRM) Initiatives for Improving Site Performance: One Year Later.” This session was an update from last year and presented specific goals, plans and initiatives that pharma and CROs were implementing to address SRM.

Applied Clinical Trials spoke to Beth Harper about this year’s session.

Q: What do you feel has changed the most in regard to site relationship management in the past year?

A: There is interest and visibility and dialogue about the topic. Actually engaging the site in the partnership is now part of the normal conversation that has elevated significantly. It’s a commonplace question and the site aspect is no longer an afterthought.

Q:  Last year, you presented on this topic. It's exciting to see material that is updated regularly. What did you find to present as an update over last year?

A: The theme for this year would be, “The best laid plans of mice and men.” With the economy, mergers, and the resource constraints brought on by that, many of the SRM programs didn’t progress as much as we thought. So the actual data to present was not as robust.

The good news is that the spirit is still there. We are continuing the conversation and people are still excited about SRM initiatives.

Q: In your view, what successes are we seeing at the site level, and for sponsors?

A: In some cases we are starting to see pay-offs in terms of faster recruitment but the jury is still out, overall. However, Quintiles’ offered metrics that it has seen a 124% relative increase in recruitment rate with their Partner Sites over the last three years.

Another success is that the dialogue is opening up, there is listening to the needs of the stakeholders but whether or not it’s accelerating we aren’t sure because there is nothing measurable.

But everyone is coming to the table to discuss. And we know if we don’t set our sites up for success, then we won’t have the product development weneed.

For more articles about Site Relationship Management:
Good Site and Sponsor Relationships Pay Off