5 Ways to Strengthen Your Clinical Research Team (Before Challenges Show Up)
The guide for clinical research or clinical project team development: how to build a high-performing team
Recent research shows that the success rate of clinical trials is 10.8% across all therapeutic areas. Not very optimistic, right? It’s a well-known fact that clinical trials are complicated. Managing clinical trials is demanding and difficult to be efficient and effective for everyone involved, whether it be a biopharmaceutical company or CRO.
So, what could increase those chances?
A high-performing team.
And yes, a “dream team’ won’t guarantee that the product will have clinical efficacy or minimal side effects or obtain regulatory approval, but it will improve your chances of obtaining reliable results. A high-performing team will help avoid other challenges, such as:
- Poor strategic planning
- Delay and increase in costs because of inadequate patient recruitment
- Statistical misinterpretation and issues with data quality
And much more. The clinical research team members are definitely not magicians, but they are the backbone of every clinical study. That’s why you should make sure your team is always at the top of their performance.
Why are continuous training and development vital?
A wise person once said: “Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.”
And the field of clinical research is no exception.
Let’s say that you are flawless in conducting the part of the clinical project process, such as managing the clinical laboratory tests. But are you certain that you are up to date with new regulatory compliances?
Or let’s say that you are an excellent statistician, numbers and formulas are the easiest thing for you. But what about your soft skills? Are you a good listener, can you ask your client the right questions to make sure you understand their goal for the research?
Every position in clinical research is multifaceted, you can start from more trivial (but not less important) topics such as teamwork and soft skills to more practical ones such as GCP training and clinical project management training. Or the best option – combine them both.
Continuous improvement is vital. Yet, it often gets forgotten among the more urgent daily tasks.
We’ll give you some strategies that will help you plan and encourage the development of your team, instead of leaving it to chance.
How to make sure your clinical research team is on top of their game: 5 tips
- Ensure you have a separate budget for educational initiatives
- Develop strong leadership & communication for team efficiency
- Take advantage of new technological developments
- Keep up with regulatory compliance in clinical research
- Implement a strong risk management strategy
1. Ensure you have a separate budget for educational initiatives, and invest in continuous training
Make sure your team understands that you support their development and even encourage it. Create a budget for your team members to take courses, training and workshops. Remind your team regularly that they have the opportunity to take part in development initiatives that improve their work, paid by the company.
This will be beneficial in many ways:
- Motivating your team to develop and become more efficient in their job
- Improving employee retention
- Giving the opportunity to solve problems through developmental opportunities
What do we mean by the third one? Problems often occur at work and are neglected simply with a warning or a brief discussion. But many problems tend to be managed in “fire-fighting mode” rather than proactively discussing the usual difficulties. When somebody seems to be a little more distracted or needs refreshing on their knowledge, they offer them the opportunity to receive it.
For example, if your Clinical Project Manager was just promoted to this position and seems a little chaotic about their responsibilities, or jumping into fire-fighting mode instead of being more proactive, then help them out by offering them to participate in a Clinical Project Management training to introduce them to management strategies and responsibilities by experts in this position.
Find a step-by-step guide on creating a training budget with examples and tips here.
2. Strong leadership & communication will make your team efficient
Without strong leadership and good communication, every clinical trial can go sideways.
It’s a challenge most clinical research companies encounter, mainly because clinical trials require cross-functional professionals from various backgrounds and expertise. Finding common ground and language can be hard and can often cost you your team’s efficiency.
To improve this aspect of your team’s performance, there are initiatives that play the role of teambuilding workshops but specialized for the field of clinical research.
They enhance 5 aspects of your team:
- Defining or understanding your company’s and align your teams vision, making sure the entire team is moving in the same direction
- Determining team goals and the corresponding project KPIs
- Engaging in workshops that will enhance team dynamics by practicing what you learn
- Boosting performance through individual coaching
- Ensuring long-term results through online Q&A forum and additional online sessions
And when it comes to leadership, there is nothing else that can foster teamwork as well as a great leader. People management can be a challenging task, so investing in the development of the leader of your team is a must-do. Especially if somebody has just been promoted from a technical clinical operations job to a leadership or strategic role, a leadership course would help that person avoid plenty of headaches and go through the transition smoothly.
Suitable courses for this goal are those focused on leadership and people management, but make sure they are led by an expert in the industry.
Pro Tip: Great leaders lead by example, so promoting continuous development for the team happens best by doing it yourself.
3. Take advantage of new technological developments
We can’t forget to keep up with technology. Clinical research is a complicated process, that’s why new developments are often created, aiming to simplify it.
Starting from AI analyzing clinical research data to wearable technology like skin patches and smartwatches that enable decentralized trials.
New improvements in Clinical Trial Management Systems (CTMS) include optimizing workflows and data accuracy to maintain high standards for your clients.
But how can you stay informed about these developments?
- Subscribe to informational channels on the subject like The Scientist and Clinical Leader
- Join events and conferences – they are the best place to make connections and stay up to date with new developments
- If you start noticing that a new method suitable for your clients is gaining popularity, make sure your team undergoes training and receives a certificate to conduct it.
Stay informed, your clients and your team will be grateful!
4. Keep up with regulatory compliance in clinical research
If new clinical regulations come as a surprise, it’ll cause your team a lot of stress and your clients huge delays.
Make sure to plan ahead those trainings that are crucial to the company’s smooth work. For example, Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training should be conducted every 2-3 years, or if the time for inspection is approaching, you can prepare them with training for inspection readiness on how to respond to the report and what to do before, after and during the inspection. During these trainings you can also learn the importance of planning the implementation of updated regulations – and we can help by supporting you with a gap analysis and consultancy to get your processes up to speed with the new regulations,.
Courses like these can take an entire day or can be separated into sessions during the span of a few days. However, you can also request a tailored in-house session, which can be a great opportunity for your team to spend more time together – a team building at the same time as a team learning!
Schedule them at least a few months in advance to ensure alignment with your ongoing projects and deadlines.
5. Implement a strong risk management strategy
Your team has to be ready for unexpected situations. This can be achieved by implementing a risk-based strategy which will identify potential risks early in the clinical trial process. Taking a risk-based approach to your clinical trials means that you will better manage the risks. This in turn can help you to define your risk-based monitoring strategy and also your Oversight strategy.
Having a strong risk-based approach to your projects entails creating proactive emergency plans to handle unexpected challenges, such as protocol deviations or patient retention issues.
Having such a strategy enhances the stability of the process and the confidence of your team.
To learn how to build it, you can go through Risk Management training, Oversight training, and even Risk-Based Monitoring training. These courses will introduce you to different techniques for risk management in clinical trials, in combination with workshops for action planning and real-life scenarios. You can conduct a tailored in-house session which will also educate each of your team members on the plan of action and what their role in it is. That can also be turned into a great teambuilding initiative.
We will train your team in real-time problem-solving skills, which will ensure that panic or neglectfulness won’t compromise the clinical trial.
Conclusion
Ensuring your team’s development doesn’t feel like an urgent task. You can postpone it again and again, but then challenges start to occur. That’s when you realize that you could have avoided these challenges if you had planned ahead to build your team’s capabilities, provide them with regulation updates or created a risk management strategy on time.
And when you look back, you’ll be grateful you made the right choice.
If you are looking for courses or tailored solutions for team development, we might be able to help. Check out our variety of courses, or contact us and we’ll make sure to deliver the most suitable solution for you!