Recruiting and retaining study participants is a common but challenging issue in clinical research. In fact, it is estimated that 20 to 40% of studies fail due to poor accrual, or the ability to enroll and keep participants engaged in the trial from beginning to end.

“Clinical trials are one of the most important steps in getting new treatments approved and available to patients, but trials only work if they enroll the right number of participants,” said Thomas Buchanan, MD, Vice Dean for Research at the Keck School of Medicine at USC and Director of the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI).

Accrual dashboards are common in industry-sponsored trials, allowing researchers and their study team members to visualize study enrollment and progress towards their goals in real-time. Now, research teams at USC can track their own study progress.

A newly created accrual dashboard called Trial Tracker was developed by the SC CTSI to help researchers visualize their study recruitment and retention using a web browser. Individuals from the Clinical Trials Office also assisted with the development of this tool. Trial Tracker has officially launched as of today.

“Clinical trial accruals are critically important to providing our patients with the latest treatments, fulfilling our mission as an academic medical center, and making Keck Medicine a destination of choice for innovative care,” said David Friedland, MD, Associate Dean for Clinical Research at the Keck School of Medicine at USC and Director of Clinical Research Support at the SC CTSI. “Trial Tracker allows for an easy assessment of study status and can identify trials at risk of falling behind recruitment targets. This can help researchers allocate resources more efficiently and will also inform SC CTSI as to opportunities for providing additional support for clinical investigators.”

The enrollment information comes from OnCore, a Clinical Trials Management System that supports key research activities such as study activation, regulatory management, visit tracking and more.

Currently, only USC studies in OnCore are eligible for visualization in Trial Tracker, but future expansion is planned. Researchers who want to access Trial Tracker will go to the link https://trialtracker.sc-ctsi.org and be prompted to authenticate via Shibboleth. They will need to have an existing account with OnCore. Finally, they will be asked to provide the email address associated with their OnCore account to activate their account in Trial Tracker. In the future, Trial Tracker may be available to various sites and users, including CHLA.

View and download the Trial Tracker Reference Guide.

Researchers and study team members who have tried Trial Tracker and have feedback to share can email the CTSI Clinical Research Support group at crs@sc-ctsi.org. Trial Tracker is just one piece of the recruitment and retention puzzle. Study teams that need personalized help with recruitment and retention strategies can reach out to the CTSI Recruitment Specialist Denise De Los Santos.