Challenges and Solutions for Clinical Trial Sites: Hear From a Doctor at Esbjerg Hospital in Denmark

PhD student and medical doctor Dr. Elise Jonasson Nielsen works at the department of hepatology and gastroenterology at the Esbjerg Hospital, University Hospital of Southern Denmark. Jonasson takes on a variety of roles within her team depending on the study the site is focusing on. She is the manager of one study looking at the brain function in patients with liver cirrhosis; in another multicenter study, she will be primarily working on finding the right patients to include in the trial. Based on her experience, Jonasson offers insights into her team’s clinical trial workflow, challenges, and technology usage.

One of the biggest challenges for the research team, which focuses on liver cirrhosis and complications to liver cirrhosis, is identifying the right patients for their studies.

Jonasson: “I think most of the hard work is finding the right patients. Our studies depend on patients being admitted to the hospital, so it is a day-by-day situation. We look at who has been admitted to the hospital during the day, and we look at if the patient can be included in our studies. One of the studies is examining if the patient would benefit from fecal microbiota transplant.”

On a typical day, the clinical trial site team looks for potential candidates for their studies.

Jonasson: “We have two studies at the moment in StudyTeam. We start by looking for patients that could qualify for the studies and start screening them by going through the inclusion/exclusion criteria.”

The research site added StudyTeam to their clinical trial workflow to identify patients and collaborate more easily.

Jonasson: “We are using StudyTeam to store patients to see if they are eligible for the study later on. But it can be difficult to find the patients that are a fit for the study. There can be some technical challenges that make it even more difficult to include patients. There is a lot of managing that is involved in order to make everything come together. But that is the main reason we are using StudyTeam; it gives us an overview and we all can comment in the portal. I can see what my colleague Karina has been doing while I was not on-site, and that way it avoids duplicating works and overlapping. For example: How many patients has she called, and which patient said ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’ Who are we trying to call again? Which patient has been admitted to the hospital? It gives us visibility as a team on blood samples pending. What are we waiting for before we can move on? The labels are also nice to use. 

And for the other study where we have not included one single patient yet, but we have been trying for the past 3 weeks now to enroll, StudyTeam gives us a nice overview of how many patients we have screened and how many have not been eligible. It shows that we have actually put in the hard work, and just not found the right patient yet!”

At the end of the day, Jonasson enjoys the variety of work that a clinical trial site offers.

Jonasson: “When I come to the site I don’t know what kind of day it will be. It depends on what patients are in the hospital that day. Some days I have carefully planned my day, but then something different comes up and that is nice! I have some good colleagues as well, which makes it nice to go to work. And also the flexibility of the job is also nice.”