Quantifying the Benefit of Teckro

Industry consultant Jeanne Hecht reports the positive impact and value of Teckro.

Jeanne Hecht Quantifies the Value of Teckro

Industry consultant Jeanne Hecht quantifies the value of Teckro and positive impact on all types of studies through cost elimination, trial agility and communication efficiency.

An experienced global executive and board member in pharma/life sciences, Jeanne Hecht is passionate about networking to advance medicine.

Jeanne Hecht is a Global Business Executive and Board Member with deep experience leading successful teams across mature and emerging markets within the product development, pharma services and life sciences space. She is passionate about elevating business leaders and utilizing networks to drive businesses and advance medicine.

Founder & CEO at JTH Consulting & Associates

Jeanne Hecht

We've all seen the headlines, haven’t we? The cost to develop a new drug ranges from less than $1 billion to more than $2 billion, protocol deviations and amendments cost $5-6 billion/year, and not a tremendous southward movement in any of these figures for the last 10 years. We are only just getting better at quantifying this reality.

However, there are several bright spots before us. First, many emerging and established companies are working to tackle these challenges and create efficiencies in the overall clinical trial operations process. Second, sponsors are paying attention. The clinical trials ecosystem is also evolving – attracting new players due to advanced innovation via significant valuation companies.

In 2021, I was commissioned by Teckro to quantify the impact of Teckro on sponsors compared with standard operations. We used data for an average study involving 250 patients, at 40 sites, over 60 months. The model is agile and can be tailored to specific sponsors and protocols.

Based on interviews, focus groups and lots of literature searches, the team and I developed a model that estimates the following cost savings per average study:

 due to digitization of the clinical protocol, study documentation and other site communication tools; this avoids the need for design, printing, shipping of study documents and updates, while providing improved access and searchability.

 by minimizing protocol deviations and violations, which can put at risk the safety, rights, and welfare of subjects, compromise data integrity, delay regulatory submissions and raise cost.

 in resource allocation needed for site communication, inefficient site contact and administrative work; and a 

Based on two customer scenarios, this model estimates an 

 due to Teckro. This is achieved by supporting inexperienced site staff with training materials, real-time access to study-related advice and a digitized, searchable protocol. This helps minimize human error, while improving sponsor-site relationships.

Outside of the positive financial impact, I also learned sponsors are leveraging Teckro to advance corporate strategic initiatives, including supporting community-based and research-naïve sites. We have all seen the importance of boosting the size of the site pool, enabling clinical research as a care option, and improving diversity, equity, and inclusion in clinical trial populations – all while ensuring high quality and compliance. I also learned just how much sites love using Teckro. Don’t believe me? Check out these customer testimonials.

Positive value drivers for all key stakeholders

Overall, Teckro underpins faster, safer, more efficient clinical trials based on multiple positive value drivers. These include:

Visibility, more rapid information exchange and increased compliance, and improved environmental sustainability due to reduced printing and shipping activities.

 Increased protocol compliance, positive impact on recruitment and patient safety, better organization of study material, and more efficient communication and operations.

For the clinical research organization (CRO):

 Reduced protocol deviations and violations.

The important benefits of Teckro can be applied to any type of clinical trial, including the decentralized approaches that have become increasingly prevalent during the COVID-19 pandemic, helping enhance communication among stakeholders and improve sponsor visibility, even under challenging conditions.

Find out more about the value of Teckro for your studies.

Jeanne Hecht Quantifies the Value of Teckro in Transforming Clinical Trials

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Grayson Scott from Centricity Research, describes how Teckro supports daily duties.

How Teckro Is Revolutionizing My Day Job

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Clinical research coordinator Grayson Scott explains how Teckro is easing the pressures on his daily working life and opening lines of communication between site and sponsor.

Grayson is an experienced oncology clinical research coordinator and multi-specialty supervisor overseeing various studies at multiple sites, using Teckro.

Site Supervisor at Centricity Research 

Grayson Scott

How Teckro Is Revolutionizing My Clinical Trial Day Job 📳🧡👨‍💼

As a clinical research coordinator (CRC) mainly in oncology, and a site supervisor at Centricity Research, my day job can be quite demanding, to put it mildly. Being a CRC is a “boots-on-the-ground” position. As a site supervisor, I also oversee a clinic that has eight CRCs and a variety of studies. As you can imagine, there is a breadth of technology in use for each study which can be a bit overwhelming and cause extra work! For independently owned research sites, this can be extra stressful.

I call this the “trickle-down” effect. While sponsors often have the best of intentions, by the time the effect of newly implemented technology gets down to the CRC, it can actually be harder to conduct tasks when the goal is always to make them simpler. To give an example with remote monitoring visits, a CRC must take documents that may be kept on paper at the site and redact patient health information before sending them electronically. It ends up being a lot of work – think manual page-by-page searching in the documents – despite the electronic systems that are supposed to be helping.

Instant Study Content, Even with Patients

All in all, it's rather ironic that the technology that is meant to be improving workloads and saving time is more likely to be a hindrance. It doesn’t help that common sense doesn’t necessarily prevail when it comes to the technology provided. We were once forbidden from recording patient data on paper because the eDiary system was mandatory – even though it wasn’t functioning correctly. That’s just one anecdote among many I could recount demonstrating the inconsistencies and burdens site staff can experience when it comes to carrying out their daily duties.

This is where I believe that Teckro really does make a difference. Teckro provides instant access to any of the essential study documents in your hand – the key things needed by a coordinator day to day, like inclusion and exclusion criteria.

At Centricity we are in a “hybrid mode” so to speak. We utilize electronic regulatory processes, but paper sources. This means that all the essential documents required to conduct clinical research trials are stored electronically, but the actual patient-related data is collected mostly on paper. We are eventually moving to electronic source, but right now you’d have to print off an informed consent form if you needed it.

With our essential documents (such as the study protocol) being stored electronically, Teckro makes it a breeze to review these documents. Previously, if a CRC needed to review prohibited concomitant medications, for example, they’d have to use their laptop, log in to our eRegulatory portal, and look for the protocol. With Teckro, you can just pull your phone out and search prohibited concomitant medications in the app – right there with the patient in the room. So easy!

Not only does Teckro make my day job much easier, it also opens lines of communication between sites and sponsors. It’s rare that I would speak to a sponsor as a coordinator, but it is imperative that sponsors get site feedback. Teckro allows sites to communicate in a way that they previously wouldn't have been able to, meaning sponsors can become aware of the real issues sites are having. Teckro not only facilitates this avenue of communication, but also makes it easier to communicate on-the-job.

Another advantage is the ability to negate multiple logins and URLs. As a coordinator in oncology, there are on average seven to 10 different online portals being used per study. As a coordinator, you could see 40 to 50 studies at one time – the number of URLs, passwords and usernames can be quite overwhelming. So, it’s very useful that Teckro allows us to access all content for all studies on Teckro, in one place.

Revolutionizing the Sponsor/Site Relationship

Looking to the future, I see both regulatory and source going completely electronic in the next five to 10 years. It’s been a bit of a challenge at times so far at Centricity as we’ve gone from completely paper based – so very old school – to the cutting edge of technology. This is a huge change for an independent site.

As an independent clinical research institute and network, we must do all of the leg work ourselves. If we need to implement a new piece of technology, then it is up to our own staff to learn how to use it and implement it properly. Getting the ball rolling with all this technology can be tricky, and sponsors need to work closely with sites to help build awareness and collect feedback, ensuring the solutions are helping and not hindering sites.

I am positive that Teckro can help smooth the way when it comes to not only ensuring staff have instant, convenient access to the protocol to run trials more efficiently, but also by enabling better site/sponsor relationships through seamless communication.

How a Simple App Is Revolutionizing My Clinical Trial Day Job

Guest blog: Clinical research coordinator Grayson Scott explains how Teckro is easing the pressures on his daily working life

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Brian Deighan highlights Teckro's capabilities for improvement when study teams use research data from site surveys.

Brian Deighan highlights Teckro's capabilities for clinical trial improvements when study teams use research data from site surveys.

Brian is the Teckro program director for several key accounts, bringing over 17 years of industry experience to his role. He collaborates with study teams globally to ensure Teckro is broadly adopted and fully leveraged for enhanced site engagement, delivering success across our current trials.

Program Director

Brian Deighan

Mining Frontline Insights: The Untapped Potential of Your Research Staff 🔓📊

Clinical trials come with a number of universal challenges. These of course evolve over time, but several recognized factors continue to impact on study success today – increasingly complex trials, capacity constraints due to high research staff turnover with fewer active investigators, and difficulties in recruiting and retaining sufficient participant numbers.

Trials struggling to navigate these challenges often face significant delays, and every delay can cost millions. What’s more, they put research goals further and further out of reach. There are many industry vendors and solutions who aim to provide tools and systems that accelerate trials but in reality, often add to the complexity. We’re all familiar with site frustrations around the countless portals and passwords required per study. This oft-cited “tech burnout” is adding to the burden sites are already carrying and compounding the problem.

In my experience, the most fundamental practice sponsors and study teams can adopt to tackle these challenges is to 

 by truly strategizing their site outreach efforts. Ultimately, the key to study success sits with study sites – investigators are the only stakeholders that can enroll patients onto a study. Connecting with investigators and other site staff in a way that adds value helps to keep a study top of mind and supports them to meet 

It’s essential to outline and maintain a regular, tailored communication strategy that keeps site staff both informed and updated on critical information and study progress. But how informed are most study teams about their sites? Site staff and investigators are a ready-made treasure trove of insights about a study. The best way to find out where they need support? Ask them.

Directly sourcing insights or feedback from sites provides study teams with valid qualitative and quantitative data, straight from the horse’s mouth – a wealth of information that can then be used to implement meaningful changes and impactful course corrections. This includes feeding learnings gained into site outreach, such as more regular communications about a particular topic like enrollment progress or a study-wide clarification about an area of confusion in the protocol.

Let’s look at an example. A study team on a Phase II oncology trial were facing recruitment challenges and had missed study milestones globally. Realizing they had a lack of awareness around site issues and pain points, they used Teckro to quickly compose a site survey and sent it to all relevant site staff across their study. They had a clear aim for the survey – to gather data on recruitment barriers and whether these were related to the inclusion/exclusion criteria.

The study team received 18 responses from investigators and study coordinators across 11 countries in just 3 days. They learned:

61% of respondents indicated tissue screening was the ultimate barrier to enrollment of potential participants.

Of those, 33% cited participant ineligibility due to PD-L1 results.

A further 28% indicated lab kit supply issues.

With the ability to easily analyze incoming responses to quickly put together this picture of site recruitment barriers, the study team had the information they needed to make data-driven decisions that would support their sites. The site staff had their voices heard and contributed to a meaningful change that improved their study experience and likelihood of success – all of which helped them feel valued and more engaged.

The power of surveying sites is clear. With Teckro, study teams can easily create and quickly share impactful site surveys themselves, instead of enduring the headache and glacial timeline of coordinating with 3rd party solutions. Sites are prompted via familiar push notifications, so chances are greater that they’ll respond. And to keep it simple, they receive and submit the survey in the same place as all other study communications, directly in the mobile app.

Teckro’s survey capabilities have long enabled sponsors and study teams to seamlessly collect fast, frontline 

. Simple to compose with accurate, integrated audience lists and real-time read and response rates, surveys with Teckro facilitate effortless role segmentation and help to inform site outreach requirements.

Even better, Teckro’s recently updated survey dashboard allows this crucial data to be maximized for optimum impact.

Teckro’s Survey dashboard now offers easy, intuitive visualization and analysis of survey results data, enabling study teams to:

Template recurring surveys: Reduce manual entry and duplication of work by saving surveys as templates to use again, securing future efficiencies and confidence in question consistency.

Visualize response data by question: Get a clear overview of answers for each survey question, making it easy to identify patterns, trends and areas for attention.

Drill into responses by site, role, country: Customize survey analyses by dynamically filtering results based on assorted criteria, helping determine whether an issue is isolated or more far-reaching and make targeted plans for improvement.

This in-depth data analysis allows efficient application of learnings. Study teams can rank survey findings in order of urgency or impact to effectively triage required guidance and allocation of resources. They can determine next best steps and course-corrections for fast improvements. And they can give sites a voice, reinforcing a culture of openness and collaboration towards collective study goals.

A digitally interconnected clinical trial with Teckro not only facilitates faster, easier access to a network of vital study resources and expert support, it also unlocks a world of unique, real-time data that study teams can’t get anywhere else – including an effortless way to gather insights directly from the study frontline.

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Jeanne Hecht Quantifies the Value of Teckro

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