Supported Sites Drive Study Success

Transform your approach to site engagement and empower your sites with Teckro.

How many of your investigators have a critical study question, right now?

Transform your approach to site engagement and empower your sites with digital access to the best of your study resources and experts, directly from their mobile. Study content, communication and collaboration in one secure, intuitive app for the best informed site decisions, anytime anywhere.

Immediate answers, better decisions

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The Interconnected Digital Protocol in Action

How Teckro improves collaboration for sites, sponsors and CRAs. 

Teckro is the interconnected digital protocol that improves collaboration for sites, sponsors and monitors. 

Teckro is the interconnected digital protocol that improves collaboration for sites, sponsors and monitors. Natively digital and uniquely at the point of care, this short demo showcases key features that boost site engagement, improve trial performance, and enhance compliance.

The Interconnected Digital Protocol in Action (Video) 📲

Teckro is the interconnected digital protocol that improves collaboration for sites, sponsors and monitors. Natively digital and uniquely at the point of care, this short demo showcases key features that boost site engagement, improve trial performance, and enhance compliance.

Video: The Interconnected Digital Protocol in Action

No more portals. No more paper. No more scattershot messages.

Patient Centricity Requires Site Centricity

Product Manager Mia Li showcases how Teckro offers an approach that is natively digital and uniquely at the point of care to support sites.

Patient and site centricity video with Mia Li

To be patient centric, you need to help sites and CRAs to simplify their
day jobs and work more efficiently in ways natural to them. Mia
showcases how an approach that is natively digital and uniquely at the
point of care supports sites from the comfort of their mobile device,
and shares examples of how leading sponsors are collaborating with sites
and monitors to better meet study milestones.

Clinical Patient Centricity Requires Research Site Centricity 🏥 (Video)

To be patient centric, sites and CRAs need to simplify their day jobs and work more efficiently in ways natural to them. Product Manager Mia Li showcases how Teckro offers an approach that is natively digital and uniquely at the point of care to support sites from the comfort of their mobile device. 

In this video, Mia also shares three specific examples of how leading sponsors are collaborating with sites to better meet study milestones and improve patient care.

Video: Clinical Trial Patient Centricity Requires Site Centricity

Mia Li, Teckro Product Manager Explains 

Hi there, this is Mia. I'm the product manager at Teckro. And I'm going to share why Teckro believes that we can't have patient centricity without site centricity.

First, just a quick one about myself, what do I do, as you might wonder? So my role is a product manager at Teckro, and basically the person who tries to understand the site problem and build the software that will solve that problem.

It's very cool, right? Something like that...

[Meme displayed with the words "60% of the time, a product manager is right every time" over an image of the character Ron Burgundy from the movie 'Anchorman']

Yeah jokes aside, product managers who build software for trial staff really need to listen to you, dig into how you do your daily job, because it's really a complicated industry.

And I'm really grateful to be here today to talk about this because I hope the audience who is watching this video right now are the people who really work at the sites with the patients, and you are the people who use the product we make. And we all know, technology is always trying to solve a problem, but my mission as a product manager at Teckro is to make sure we're solving the right one.

So let's start. This is how the industry is looking right now. Sponsors are facing more pressures from the market for sure. And many in the industry, including all technology vendors, are claiming to accelerate their trials.

But the reality is that only an investigator can recruit a patient.

It's the sites, it's you who are the people working with patients day to day. The trial's success or failure sits with you. And this is what we believe at Teckro; you start with site centricity and patient centricity will follow.

And now I will be sharing a few real stories of how your work can be a lot easier with Teckro.

Imagine this right now, you need to decide on a patient enrollment and the patient is waiting in front of you, and you're not sure if one of the conditions will meet the criteria, even after checking the protocol, which is very common. What would you do now?

I guess ask your CRA. You need to find your CRA, who the CRA is in this particular study, find contact details, write an email, and then wait.

Now we all know the CRAs are also extremely busy, and when they see the question, often at the time they need to check with the study team. At the end, the site might only get an answer in a few days.

And now I want to show you this can be different.

And all you need is your mobile phone and an app.

Here is a real case in Teckro.

So this research staff had this question about patient enrollment on a Saturday afternoon. Now according to our research, the time it takes for a CRA to provide an answer is typically days and even sometimes weeks. And how long would you think it took to get the answer back for this particular site stuff?

Two minutes.

And it's directly from the monitor, from the medical monitor on Teckro. And the site got that patient enrolled.

This is a real case on Teckro we feel proud of. You actually don't need to dig out who is your CRA, what's their email address. All you need is to grab your phone and drop the question into a dedicated channel where your study team is on standby and guiding you. And there is no information passing on from different people, no secondhand answer.

With the Teckro app, the site got a prompt answer directly from the study team and they can make that decision in two minutes. That's what we believe how simple it should be.

When we got this feedback from a large institute I want to share with you, he told us "It's rare that I will speak to a sponsor as a coordinator, but it's crucial that sponsors become aware of real questions sites have."

And Teckro allows sites communicating in a way that they previously wouldn't have been able to.

Now, you went back home but realized you need to check something for tomorrow's patient visit. Maybe you need to open your laptop, log into some kind of portal, but with Teckro we remove all that for you. Let's see why our sites love it.

All your studies, all your protocols within one app on Teckro.

Sites don't need more portals because they are all here in one app, in the study resources within Teckro.

So you enter one study - you will always only see the most recent protocol and you can check whatever you need now.

We collect feedback from the sites regularly and common feedback we get is, "I find Teckro really quick and convenient rather than having to leave my patients, go to my desk, grab a protocol, find the right page. Teckro is just so easy to use."

Last one, it's also a real story from a site who use Teckro.

Before getting to it, let me ask do you get emails from all sorts of people in one study? They might actually ask the same thing, and if you only get back to one you might get chased by the other people.

And when you are working on more than one site, all the updates, questions from different people, would just be cluttered in your inbox.

And we work with the sponsors and they often tell us that they really want site's feedback. It's obvious that this feedback could save time and money for the trial, but there is a disconnect in communication between sites and sponsors.

It's challenging for both sites and sponsors to get a straightforward communication route and bring what they want to each other in an efficient manner.

Is there a better way for this?

Have a look at this. Again, this is a real case. In this trial, the study team found enrollment was slow. And they had a concern whether there is some barriers within the eligibility criteria.

And they value what the sites would tell them. So they set up this survey on Teckro and sent to the sites, and the sites got this nice notification on their phone screen, to the point, directly asking their experience of their enrollment.

So our sites tap it, and provide what they find the most challenging thing. That's it.

Now, we know you want to get your feedback to the sponsors, but we also understand how busy a day of site staff can be, and we want to make that process simple, easy and straightforward.

So after these sites done the survey, a dashboard is automatically generated for a study team to get that insight from all the sites.

And in this study, you can see here, the study team now know that sixty one percent of the site said it's tissue screening. It's an automatic barrier to the enrollment.

So communication here is centralized at a study level and you don't get emails here and there and have to repeat responding to the same thing while keeping track. All this is streamlined and you and sponsors can be bridged together on one single app and get straight what both sides want.

This is what we picture how a trial should run. It's patients, sites, sponsors, and CRAs collaborating, and achieving the same goal - patient care.

This is also how I want to get a product in front of you as a product manager, it's working together with all the stakeholders and really understand what you need and get that sixty percent of the time right to one hundred percent right.

Now, whoever watching this recording now, thank you so much for your time. I hope I can speak with you in the future.

And if you have any questions, here is my email, and you can always contact me and I'm more than happy to discuss anything.

Alright. Thanks again, folks. I hope you have a nice day or night there. Bye-bye!

Best Practices to Improve Oncology Clinical Trial Performance

Short overview on how Teckro improves oncology clinical trial operations.

Best Practices to Improve Oncology Trial Performance

Rita Frawley raises common challenges faced by sponsors in oncology trials, such as site engagement, study design complexities, and site activity visbility. 

Short overview on how Teckro improves oncology clinical trial operations. The video also features insights and tips for sponsors from Rita Boland, Teckro customer success manager.

Best Practices to Improve Oncology Trial Performance 👍 (Video)

Rita Frawley raises the common challenges faced by sponsors in oncology clinical trials, such as site engagement, study design complexities, and visibility of site activities. This video emphasizes the need for proactive measures and the use of technology to improve site engagement and increase visibility of site activities in real time. By using technology to provide instant access to study documents and assessments, study teams can reduce protocol deviations and improve overall trial performance.

Video: Best Practices to Improve Oncology Trial Performance

The most common challenges which our sponsors are facing on a daily basis are site engagement, study design complexities, particularly those related to visit schedules and assessments, toxicity and safety management. And finally, visibility of what sites are doing or the lack thereof. I've received a lot of student feedback and have seen firsthand the difficulty in keeping sites engaged, particularly when they're running multiple simultaneous trials. This leads to a difficulty keeping sites engaged with the study documents, and we all know the issues there.

There's also the added complexity or challenge of site staff turnover, which study teams have discussed with me before. Oncology trials typically have many visits or assessments during the trial and have a very detailed assessment or procedure list for each visit. We have seen the complexities here with the large number of protocol amendments in oncology trials and through the changes to the visit procedures inclusion criteria to make the studies more desirable for both sites. And patients.

Study teams are currently being reactive as opposed to proactive, and they only find out about issues at a site after they have happened. It gives the study team extremely limited ability to pre-empt ease and ease, and it leads to something evident in every clinical trial, not just oncology, which is a lack of visibility to see what sites are doing in real time. There is a disconnect between the study team with the monitors and sites, and this has become an even larger issue, particularly in the current climate, when site status is changing on a daily and weekly basis. And also monitors are doing remote monitoring of sites.

Well, we've seen of those that are using tech or fewer protocol deviations at site with site staff having instant access to the protocol, they can reach into their pocket, have access to the study. Documents to take will instantly take will also allow study teams to have better visibility of site activity and engagement, particularly when they can see in real time how sites are interacting with their study documents.

How Patients as Stakeholders can Increase Physician Participation

Teckro's Dr. Brendan Buckley speaks with WOCC Programme Director Frances Reid.

Teckro's Brendan Buckley, also a board member of Breakthrough Cancer Research Ireland, speaks at the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition (WOCC) Best Possible Care for All virtual event with Frances Reid, Programme Director of the WOCC.

The event is part of the WOCC’s Global Ovarian Cancer Charter Summit Series of which Teckro is a sponsor. The charter is a call to action for those committed to improving survival and quality of life for women with ovarian cancer.

How Patients as Stakeholders Can Increase Physician Participation 👨‍⚕️🤕👩‍⚕️ (Video)

Teckro's Dr. Brendan Buckley, also a board member of Breakthrough Cancer Research Ireland, speaks at the World Ovarian Cancer Coalition (WOCC) Best Possible Care for All virtual event with Frances Reid, Programme Director of the WOCC.

The event is part of the WOCC’s Global Ovarian Cancer Charter Summit Series of which Teckro is a sponsor. The charter is a call to action for those committed to improving survival and quality of life for women with ovarian cancer.

Video: Patients as Stakeholders and Physician Participation in Clinical Trials

How Patients as Stakeholders can Increase Physician Participation 

I believe that the first question that should be asked of patients with cancer underdiagnosis should be long as I do better on the clinical trial than on the existing standard of care? And the reason for that is that the cutting edge treatments. Our first encountered in clinical trials. But not only that in many places.

Treatments may have been approved by the regulators for but are not yet reimbursed or provided by insurers or by a health service. And they form part of best standard of care. So patients and trials. Always or at least on what is recognized internationally as best care.

And then on top of that, they may have a placebo or they may have a new treatment. And it's been shown in many studies that patients who are in trials have better outcomes, irrespective of whether the new drug works or not. But they have better outcomes than those who are just in routine care. So if trials are so important for patients with cancer, why are there not more people recruited into them?

Well, the practical challenges are that firstly, there may just not be a trial that I'm running or that colleagues are running in my hospital. So I need to know where trials are available within. The region that's reasonably accessed for travel. So, you know, I live in Ireland.

So I need to know whether trial center is for a particular trial or open elsewhere in the country. So just that direct access to a trial is often not that easy. And this requires significant effort to find out what's going on and then to refer patients to trials as well. And as a clinician, I was always very busy.

The role with people outside my consulting rooms wondering, why is he taking so long with on the phone with them? And, you know, the pressure of getting through the workload is significant. And then on top of that, if you have to go exploring where you can refer patients to trials, that's an additional task. And with the best will in the world, I confess that I skipped that many times because I just didn't have time or opportunity.

And the situation is only getting more complex as ovarian cancer moves from being seen as a homogeneous disease with a one size fits all approach to treatment. Treatments are being developed which target very specific mechanisms which may or may not be present in an individual cancer. And for that reason. The treatments are they require.

Probably fewer people on the trail, but people are also much harder to recruit. So, again, let's take ovarian cancer. There may be, you know, centimeter dealing with that may see a couple of people a year with new diagnosis of that condition. But if one is looking for a very specific molecular subtype, there may only be two or three people a year in that same center with this specific tumor.

So it means that trials have to be spread over many more centers, over many more countries to find the specific markers and the specific mechanisms that a new targeted treatment personalized for that patient on the tumor can address. So there are difficult times ahead with more trials, more trial centers, but fewer patients in each trial at each center. This coincided pretty much with the arrival of COVID 19, and whilst it has wreaked havoc in terms of cancer diagnosis and treatment and care, it also has offered some new ways of working that are making researchers think how they run trials, making it easier for the patient to comply with the protocol, reducing the number of hospital visits, and providing real time data captured electronically.

Brendan is very positive about these changes in care for patients, but he takes it further and says there is room for even more involvement from patients and patient organizations. You'll excuse me if this is a little bit of a hobbyhorse of mine, but traditionally patients haven't really been treated as stakeholders in the trial. And that's a very paradoxical thing because of course, there are the people who really have the biggest stake in the outcome. And that's beginning to change.

And what I think I would like to try to work towards a situation in which patients and trials. Are seen as having a big contribution to play as individuals in the trial, and that means they really need to understand what's going on. I like to think of patients, almost as being. Co-investigators in the course of the way the trial was run, we often are slaves to a traditional way of measuring an outcome.

And while these traditional ways are very important, there are other things that patient organizations can draw to the attention of investigators and of those who are designing protocols. And so these are important to us. And, you know, things like quality of life questionnaires have been used for many years. But I think that, again, can be extended and for many conditions.

Things that are important to patients, you know, are often missed out from trials and they need to be included. There is a trade. Patient organizations can really help with recruitment of trials. So you have considerable reach through a very large number of people and you're also trusted.

So you're not some kind of giant corporation that people are, you know, feel a bit equivocal about. You're clearly working only for one thing, and that's in the interests of people with this condition. So you have a great opportunity to accelerate trials by helping recruitment. But there is a quid pro quo that you are entitled to ask for, and that is that views on how protocols are designed, you know, how invasive procedures are.

You may actually be happy to have procedures that are more invasive, even because the pharma company or the ethics committee may just really not know what they're talking about. You know, you may be able to accept things in the interests of success that an ethics committee might consider or a sponsor pharma company might consider to be a bit too much. So I think you have a great contribution on both sides of that and. The way that can percolates through the whole design of a trial can be really very valuable.

Easier Clinical Trial Collaboration

Former CRA Maria Milas presents a better approach to content and communication.

Why Can't Clinical Trial Collaboration Be Easier?

Former CRA Maria Milas presents a simplified, centralized approach to clinical trial content and communication management to help everyone stay on the same page.

Herding Cats: Why Can’t Clinical Trial Collaboration Be Easier?

Teckro's Maria Milas presents a simplified, centralized approach to clinical trial content and communication management to help everyone stay on the same page.

The initial phase of a clinical trial relies on a constant flow of communication and documentation exchange. Yet, the tools used today haven’t changed in decades. From a flurry of emails with different instructions to documents passing back and forth either as PDFs or paper, it’s a challenge for site personnel to keep everything straight.

This session was originally presented at the Feasibility, Site Selection and Study Activation Track at SCOPE Europe.

Herding Cats: Why Can’t Clinical Trial Collaboration Be Easier? 😿 (Video)

Industry expert and former CRA Maria Milas presents a simplified, centralized approach to clinical trial content and communication management to help everyone stay on the same page.

The initial phase of a clinical trial relies on a constant flow of communication and documentation exchange. Yet, the tools used today haven’t changed in decades. From a flurry of emails with different instructions to documents passing back and forth either as PDFs or paper, it’s a challenge for site personnel to keep everything straight.

This session was originally presented at the Feasibility, Site Selection and Study Activation Track at SCOPE Europe.

Video: Why Can’t Clinical Trial Collaboration Be Easier?

Hello I am Maria Milas, I'm the site engagement senior manager for Europe here at Teckro, and before I joined Teckro, I used to be a CRA. And this could have been easily me – a CRA managing and monitoring seven different clinical trial protocols, with sites all around Spain at the same time. On a daily basis, it means that I was constantly traveling. Maybe four days out of five, I was hopping on a train or on a flight to travel anywhere around Spain for a monitoring visit.

It also means that my email inbox was full of hundreds of emails that I actually had to take an action. My phone was constantly ringing and I constantly had notifications of missed phone calls from my investigators also waiting for me to get back to them as soon as possible. But even with all this, nothing is more challenging and stressful for CRAs than the site initiation visit. Already looks terrifying, isn't it?

But why is that? Well, the SIV is a very limited period of maybe two, three, four hours of a first monitoring visit at the site, and in that first monitoring visit – as a CRA – you gather all the team, all the members at that site who at that site who will participate in your clinical study. And in that visit, you will review all the study documents. You will obtain signatures from everybody in that team.

You will certify that they have been trained. You will obtain GCPs, check the equipment, bring the equipment that has been provided by the sponsor, but also the equipment that the site has and is providing with the roles and responsibilities of everybody in the team and most importantly, check and review the protocol. Solve and answer and discuss any question or doubt that the site, the investigators, the study coordinators, anybody in the team might have so that everything is clear and everybody is prepared for the big day, which is the first patient in the study. Now, let's say that the SIV has been performed.

Everybody's trained. Everybody's prepared for this big day and the big day comes. It takes some time because unfortunately, sometimes patients are not as easy to find as we expect. But here we are.

Let's say that my principal investigator is seeing a patient who is actually a great fit for the study. Finally! But wait a second. While my PI is seeing this patient I was living in Barcelona at the time and I was traveling to Madrid to a monitoring visit of a different study at a different site.

And when I landed from my flight in Madrid, I had five missed phone calls and several emails from my investigators, with the subject "urgent." And I can tell you now what happened. Well, my PI was not expecting this patient to be a good candidate for the study, so he didn't have access to the paper copy of the protocol. He didn't have it at hand with him and then he thought, “Well, I'm going to try to talk to Maria, my CRA.

She should be able to provide me with the eligibility criteria.” But I was not available to respond to his phone call. So then the investigator thinks of the sponsor and the investigator sends emails to the medical monitors, but also, he didn't know that the medical monitors at the sponsor was sitting in a different time zone. So unfortunately, our patient had to be rescheduled to the following week, and this site missed the opportunity to enroll the first patient in the study.

And how can that be? We had the perfect patient and of course, the patient was consented and enrolled in the study a week later but we missed the opportunity of being the site to enroll the first patient in the study, all because the PI didn't have access to the protocol. And having access to the study documents to the most updated versions of the study documents has always been a challenge to me as a CRA, because in my email inbox, I would receive all sorts of documents, from protocol amendments, to investigator brochures to pharmacy manuals, informed consent forms, safety letters, notifications, clarifications notes, recruitment updates, cohorts being open, cohorts being closed and all these documents, all these emails with documents with emails that I had to immediately send to my investigators.

And I remember one of the trials that I was monitoring; a new update to the protocol and to the informed consent form came around Christmas of that year – it was around 18, 19 December. I received it in my email inbox, I shared it with the investigators, I obviously also printed it, So that I took it with me on the next monitoring visit. And of course, with full inboxes, my investigators, most of the sites did not respond to me with a confirmation of having received that email, but that's a deal, right? Us CRAs, you know that your investigators will prioritize the patient care and the patient treatment.

So I went on a monitoring visit to this specific site at the end of January, according to the monitoring visit plan. And when I went there, I realized that the site was not even aware that there has been update to the protocol and to the ICF. And not only they were not aware, but they didn't have the patient consented and on this new ICF. And that means that we had the major protocol deviation that we actually had to report.

And let me just stress a little bit more the importance and at the same time, the challenge of the communication in a clinical trial: whether it's a document update that needs to be communicated to the site or if it's questions, clarifications that come from the investigators and they seek their response from the CRAs or the medical monitors, there is a need of urgency of immediate response and immediate awareness. And because I was a CRA and my email inbox would constantly be full of hundreds of not only emails with new documents or updates that had to be communicated, but also from investigators seeking advice from the sponsor or the medical monitors on how to proceed, maybe how to act on an adverse event.

And as a CRA, I was the bridge between the site and the sponsor. It could be that the site wanted to confirm inclusion and exclusion criteria or the management of an adverse event. As I just said, well, that email came into my inbox waiting for me to read it, communicate it with the medical monitor, wait for the guidance from the medical monitor and then communicate it back to the investigator, which could actually take probably days. Days?!

Meanwhile, a patient is waiting to know if they could join a trial with a new treatment for their condition. Or maybe it was about a patient who was on a treatment that should have been discontinued days ago. And there has to be a better way, a more efficient way to communicate important information updates to allow and support informed decisions at the point of care.

One: for the safety and well-being of our patients and, two: for the efficiency of a clinical trial. And how do we, as Teckro, tackle these communication and compliance challenges? Well, Teckro is a clinical trial hub where the sponsors, CROs and sites collaborate by having access to the clinical study content and also communicate with each other while having access to real-time data of what is happening in the study. And how does that look like?

Well, the clinical study document, such as protocol investigator brochure, pharmacy manual, any other study document, they're digitalized and available on Teckro to be searched on the app or on the website view at the moment of need. That means that actually my principal investigator who was seeing a patient and had to confirm the eligibility criteria for the study... well, he could just have typed into the app "inclusion criteria" and confirm those inclusion/exclusion criteria at the point of care while the patient was still in his office. In terms of communication, all study-relevant notifications are sent through Teckro, and the users will be alerted with a pop up notification on their phone.

That means that instead of worrying about the unlimited inbox of unread emails, the Teckro users know that the relevant notifications are on Teckro and they will be made aware whenever there is a new relevant notification available for them on Teckro. But what about the doubts and questions that the investigators might have during the course of a study? Well, the investigators can connect directly with a group of experts that are preassigned to them by the study team on Teckro, and they simply have to type in their question. And a member of these groups of experts will respond directly to them and will provide that guidance a communication that is visible to all the participants in the group and also can be exported and included in the eTMF.

On the Teckro app, the study team also has visibility into real-time data of all the searches that are being performed by the study worldwide. And it allows them to identify trends or behavior patterns. Imagine that several sites are searching for the same adverse event right after the baseline visit of their patient when the study drug is being introduced to the medical monitor or the study manager, this might ring a bell, and the study team could actually support these sites by maybe, as we can see on the right screen, sending them a quick survey and asking directly for feedback. What do they need?

How can they be supported? Do they need more clarification? Let's say that one of those sites is taking longer to recruit the patients than expected. Well, the study team can actually send them a quick survey and ask, "why is that?"

Do they need more support? Do they need more guidance? Or maybe it's just going to take longer than we expected, and we want to know the reasons why. So solving the communication, collaboration challenges in a clinical trial is vital to all of us, and that is why I encourage you to stay connected to us and maybe by our collaboration, we can also help sites to collaborate and communicate more efficiently as well.

And you can connect, whether directly with me on LinkedIn or follow Teckro on any of our social media. And if you're more interested in discussions related to the clinical trial industry, do not miss our Totally Clinical podcast. Thank you.

Interconnected Clinical Trials

Senior Product Manager Mia Li talks about the use of targeted digital content at study sites.

Why Digital, Multimedia Content is a Game Changer for Study Sites

Teckro examines how accessible multimedia clinical study content combined with study team expertise is vital to site staff at the point of care.

Multimedia Content and Strategic Communication for Digitally Interconnected Clinical Trials

Digital Multimedia Content as a Game Changer for Clinical Study Sites 😲 (Video)

While research staff have grappled with the oft-cited digital immaturity of the industry, Teckro has diligently prioritized “design thinking” to build intuitive and user-centric solutions, removing barriers, enhancing speed, maintaining safety, and improving compliance and integrity. In this video, Senior Product Manager Mia Li examines digitally interconnected trials on Teckro and how multimedia resources and the clinical expertise of a study team are easily accessible to study site staff at the point of care.

Video: Impact of Digital Multimedia Content at Clinical Study Sites

Mia Li on Digital, Multimedia Content as a Game Changer for Study Sites

Teckro Talks: Content

User experience is a big topic in our company, our team, to really make this product easy and friendly to the users. We need to always consider sites. They have loads of different systems and vendors already in their working space. We really want to improve their efficiency rather than just add another component in their daily work.

And we want to help them and help them to have more time to focus on their patients rather than dealing with the technology. Mobile, I think that really we want to consider the unique workplace our users are working at. For mobile, we provide our app to our users and really they can have their answer on their phone anytime, anywhere. So then digital, that's obvious because we make the study content digitized in our platform and make it even searchable.

And in terms of point of care, I think for the site staff, they are working with the patients every day and if there is a patient and they really need an answer from the study content, they can be at that point and just take out their phone and find the answer. In my opinion, we should really consider the Teckro platform as a whole product. We want to picture a really nice workflow and user journey that we can provide to our customers from the study setup along the study lifecycle. So the first step, of course: digitize the study content and provide a nice entry point for the sponsors to broadcast a welcoming message or video for the sites.

And some of the sites might search for something which becomes a trend, so there might be something more common there, and they can provide more earlier clarifications to the sites and really just to help them in a timely manner. When you as a site user, sometimes you still have some questions and the user can initiate a conversation and get that question passed to a clinical expert within that study and can get a response really in a timely manner as well. So all the pillars complement each other in a way for the whole platform's value proposition.

Teckro Product Overview

We explain how to “Teckro the answer” for study questions.

This product introduction video explains how clinical trial study site staff rely on one simple app, with all protocols, in their pocket, at the point of care.

Teckro Clinical Trial App Overview 📲 (Video)

Teckro connects study stakeholders with critical information they need, when they need it. This means investigators and research staff have immediate answers on hand when they are with patients. Monitors can better communicate study changes and provide useful guidance to study sites. And sponsors have real-time visibility into study site engagement and search trends, which could give early indications of risks or the need for clarifications.

Watch this introduction to see how research staff, monitors and sponsors “Teckro the answer” to their clinical trial questions.

Video: Teckro Clinical Trial App Overview

Product Overview

In clinical trials, everything starts with a question. For research staff, finding accurate answers when they need it can be hard. This is because the study protocol is often still on paper, or it might be a PDF file stored in a portal somewhere. Paper protocols or files locked away in portals don't get busy research staff the immediate, accurate answers they need when they are with patients. They also don't give sponsors and monitors insight into site engagement or early warnings of potential safety issues. And yet adhering to the protocol is vital for patient safety and the quality of the study. 

From a static document, Teckro transforms the protocol into a critical information source for engagement and trial conduct. Teckro clinical trial software creates a digital engagement platform that connects research site staff, sponsors and monitors together with each other and with the critical study information they need when they need it. Teckro Search is the study protocol in your pocket. It is available from any mobile device. Answers are returned in seconds from the current approved protocol for that site.

Sponsors and CROs have real time visibility into which sites are interacting with the study based on Search activity. Study managers can get early indications of potential issues from Search trends if research staff can't find what they're looking for from the search results. Teckro Connect provides a compliant, dedicated channel for them to directly query a predefined group of medical and study experts. This removes site staff frustration of not getting timely answers back to questions, and it increases site staff confidence in the answers because they are coming directly from the experts.

With Teckro Engage, study teams can send specific messages to prepare for an upcoming visit or alert them of critical updates. Users are alerted on their mobile device and administrators can track who opens and reads the message. With Teckro Survey, study teams can easily get feedback from research staff through an online survey.

It all starts with the protocol. Teckro transforms the protocol from an inaccessible static document into valuable information for everyone: research staff, CROs and sponsors. Find out how to unleash the power of your protocol.

Closing the Gap in Clinical Trial Communication

Join us as we look at a new approach for investigators and site staff to connect with both study content and experts, so they can get the guidance they need, when and where they need it.

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Clinical trial success is dependent on effective communication between study teams.

Hello and welcome. And today, we're going to look at the topic of communication that we know that clinical trial success is dependent on effective communication between study teams and research personnel. And yet when we talk to sponsors, they aren't really sure the best way to communicate with sites that is helpful for them. And on the other side, we know that research staff are often frustrated at how long it takes to get answers from study experts.

So in today's session, we're going to look at a simple, modern way to connect investigators inside staff with both the study instruction in the protocol, as well as expert guidance when and where they need it. And we'll also look at how study teams gain critical insight into both trial performance as well as engagement. Now for today's session, I'm joined with a couple of tech experts. First, we have Andrea Parrish, who is tech co-head operational excellence.

Andrea has been in the industry for quite a long time, so she's very well-suited to talk through the challenges and also to present a solution for us in terms of bridging the gap of communication. And second, we have Declan O'Dwyer, who is a tech product manager. And if I'm not mistaken, he's one of the very first employees at tech grocery. He's been here for quite a while.

He'll talk about some research that we did for the launch of a newer product within the communication side of the tech portfolio. And he'll also take us through a scenario to show the potential of how this product can work to bridge that gap myself. I'm Kelly brown, and I am the chief marketing officer for tech growth, and I'll be moderating this session. For today's agenda.

We have a few simple things we'd like to accomplish. So, first of all, I will go through today's challenges with communication. Next, we'll look at a new approach to New way of thinking about how sites and study teams can be communicating. And then we'll look at a sample scenario flow of what is possible.

And finally, I hope we will have piqued your interest enough that you want to find additional information. And so I'll point you to some additional resources at the end of this presentation. Andrea, over to you. All right.

Thank you, Kelly, for the introduction and for the opportunity to speak with everyone today. Well, let's just get started. When we think about the challenges involved in conducting clinical trials, I think we can all agree that there could be a number of contributing factors. We know that sponsors and sites are focused on the overall safety of the patient and that the trial is conducted in accordance with the protocol.

And in order to manage these responsibilities, it requires efficient and effective communication with the key study stakeholders. So taking the challenges we just spoke about into consideration and knowing how important it is for sponsors and sites to meet their objectives, the lack of effective communication is a key component to contributing to some of those challenges. In addition, inefficient communication has a direct impact two variables that are absolutely critical for the sponsors and sites during the conduct of clinical trials, and these include time cost, quality and compliance and visibility.

So we know that the inefficiencies in communication exist across a number of stakeholders. But I wanted to focus this discussion today on two distinct groups, specifically sponsors and sites. So why focus on just these two groups specifically? Because ultimately, sponsors are required to maintain oversight of all trial conduct related to their protocol or study, and sites are required to ensure the safety of the trial subjects and remain in line with the requirements of the protocol.

So the inability of these two stakeholders in managing this these requirements has the potential to put the trial and the trial subjects at risk. So this would be an issue. So communication is key. So what are some of the challenges experienced by both sponsors and sites?

Here's a few that just stand out that came to mind specifically for sponsors. I would say that there are multiple stakeholders and oftentimes it is very hard to align on key decisions. Also, delayed response times from sites and series is very common for sponsors. Finally, there is no visibility in any site activity.

You don't know what documents they're referring or referencing as an example. You have no idea what's happening out there at the site. So what are some of the site's challenges? Well, it's difficult to get protocol clarifications resolved quickly.

We know that there are important study details that are actually buried in email that are never actually accessed. And for those of you out there that work with multiple sponsors, you do know that you're working across multiple portals for those different settings. So you can imagine how difficult it is to try to manage in between all of those passwords. So also finally, four sites, I would say managing multi-site trials and streamlining that communication.

What we've been told can be very, very difficult. So as I mentioned previously, we need to address not only the impact of inefficient communication on sponsors and sites, but we also address how that inefficient communication has a direct impact to time, cost, quality and visibility when conducting the clinical trials. So let's talk about what can improve clinical trials, and I want to talk about how to approach can help address some of those variables that we've been referencing. So just to get you oriented, we just to let you know that tempo has three pillars which can help sponsors and sites improve the clinical trial process.

So what are those? These are insights, content management and communication on the whole. But, you know, having mentioned how important communication is to sponsors and sites, we're going to focus on this key area for discussion and specifically how it relates to those attributes. We spoke about time, cost, quality and visibility.

So let me elaborate on a few examples on how tech broken can have a positive impact on these variables. So let's start with time. Well, we all know that time is of the essence. With sponsors and sites, it means everything.

So with tech row, what you can expect are faster answers to your protocol questions because you can get those answers right in your palm of your hand. Quicker decisions and in terming eligibility of patients. Our study participants, I mean, this is critical when they're sitting in your office and you have limited time with the patient and the protocol, and you're going to have faster clients or access to critical site information, which often is not happening. It's sitting in binders on a shelf.

Right so next, let's address cost. We know that money matters and the cost of doing business is quite extensive in the clinical research space. So sites and sponsors are always looking for ways to be cost efficient. So with tetra, what can you expect?

You can expect fewer protocol, deviations and quality issues. Having that seamless communication channel reduces the probability of those instances occurring because you're getting the right answer the first time. You're also you can also expect faster recruitment by connecting with the sites and keeping them engaged all throughout the study, which is rare. So now let's talk about quality.

We all know that the goal in the clinical trials space related to quality is compliance with the protocol. So what can you expect to grow in this space? It would be proactive compliance. You're actually de-risking the trial in real time because of the features of our platform.

You're able to understand what those risks are and manage it with the tools that we have, particularly our communication channels. You also have direct access to medical experts with our product. And finally, in this space, I would say that have a targeted communication channel, and we all know these. We would much prefer a targeted message in your hand versus waiting through spam.

Those emails never get read and therefore you are getting information that is irrelevant for you. So finally, let's discuss visibility. Right now, we know that there is zero visibility into how teams are accessing information about the protocol or starting study documents. You have no idea what they're touching or reading.

So but what you can expect with tech row, though, is access to who is interacting with the study documents and when. Also, you have the ability to see who is opening and reading study messages. So you can begin to gauge who is engaged with your study, which is critical for all clinical research trials. And then finally, you have immediate feedback to assess, study, feasibility or sentiment regarding the study.

Again, all of these are ways in which you can improve the clinical trial process in the communication space. All right. So as you can see, the tech platform can have a direct impact to the communication challenges faced by both sponsors and sites. The communication streams we just spoke about are seamless, directed and instant and can help you manage the variables that are absolutely critical for success during the conduct of clinical trials.

Specifically, as it relates and coming back to it again, time cost, quality and visibility. So back to you, Kelly. Thanks for taking us through that, Andrea. And I would like to pause for a moment here to just set the context a little bit more around the tech product portfolio.

So as you can see from this chart here, Andrew has taken us through the three pillars around insight, content and communication around that. We have several different products that you can see. So we have tech search, which is related to the content side. On the communication side, we have tech connect, tech engage and we have tech survey and they'll serve different purposes.

But for the point of today, what we'd like to do is talk a bit more about tech connect, which is one of the newer products within the portfolio. And for that, we'll have Declan take us through from product manager perspective the explanation of how and why we came to ad tech or connect to the product portfolio. And then he'll take us through a sample of how it can actually be used. Thank you, Kelly.

So I'd like to start by giving some insight into the evolution and background of tech connect, which essentially can be described as a communication channel, which allows sites to speak directly with medical and study experts. The common recurring theme that we found when speaking with sites was that they frequently become blocked, and it's a direct result of poor and inefficient channels of communication. And we found that this lack of direct engagement with the experts are a source of truth, if you like, and can lead to a lack of trust in the integrity of the information that they're receiving.

And it also leads to unnecessary delays. And sites are often delayed for disruptive really long periods of time. And when waiting for term vacations. So by introducing this direct channel with the experts and removing the potential need for clarification to have to come through a third party.

And tech reconnects and not only improves the time resolution for sites, but also improves the level of trust in the integrity of the information that's being returned. And then with sites unblocked and they can move forward with their day to day activities unhindered. And this ultimately leads to improved site engagement and productivity. So I would like node to walk you through a sample user flow of how Tech Connect could be used in a clinical setting and support.

Noting that in this scenario, key to the trial success is that the study experts can respond to questions in a very quick, a very short time frame. So in this scenario, we have a principal investigator, Dr. Michaels, who needs clarification and how to proceed with treatment for a patient who has experienced skin reaction and is first port of call is to search for the relevant protocol instructions on his mobile phone using type of search. Having done this, he then finds that he needs for furniture, for patient, determine whether the patient needs a dose reduction or where the treatment needs to be interrupted.

In order to do this, he simply types this question into tech, reconnect and starts a conversation with the team of experts on a supporting site. Then we have a group of medical monitors who form a team of supporting experts. And they are fully prepared to respond to messages when received. Having been trained on tech or connects, they are ready to react when alerted and as tech reconnect supports rapid alerting.

All of the team will be notified when a message is received, whether that's within the application or by email or push notification on their mobile phone if you happen to be offline at that point in time. So in this instance, one of the team responds to doctor Michael's, informing him that, yes, the treatment should be interrupted and doctor might extend. Having read and having read the message, the physician needs further clarification around how best to proceed with treating the patient's skin reaction itself. And he simply asks an additional question.

In this instance, a different member of Team responds and terrifies how best to proceed with the treatment. Once start to meet, the standards confirm that he's happy with the information that he's received and is clear, fully clear as how to proceed. And any member of the team can then resolve the conversation at this. The conversation can be exported to PDF for inclusion with trimester form.

So in essence, here we have an example of a research team answering the question, making the right decision in a timely manner, and maintaining the patient safety and doing so all in compliance with the protocol. The scenario that Declan just walked through with us is not just theory. We recently had a phase Ii study where a research team needed time sensitive guidance related to the participants safety, which is always paramount in less than 15 minutes. The principal investigator had everything that they needed, and it started when the study coordinator using tech research to find a protocol instruction.

But the pi needed further clarification. So what happened next was they used the tech reconnect feature and they initiated a conversation with a medical monitor who responded to the question within 4 minutes, which is unheard of, as we all in this industry. So after a few more clarifications, the research team was very clear on exactly how to proceed. So all this, as you can imagine, in just minutes.

So imagine in the old model how long this exchange would have taken. We all know there is no comparison. So that concludes my summary today, and so I'll kick it back to you. Kelly Andrea, Declan, Thank you both very much for your presentation.

So if I could summarize briefly what we saw today. We talked about communication and really bridging the gap between two main groups, sites and sponsors. And we also talked about four key components that are absolutely critical when we think about clinical trial operations being time cost, quality and visibility. And of course, sites have a role to play in that and sponsors have a role to play in that ultimately for the betterment of patient safety.

And we also talked about tech row and the fact that our platform is organized in three key pillars. But today we really drilled into the communication side. And as we saw with Declan, it really allows for a new approach for research staff to directly connect with monitors, study experts, however you want to structure your trial, but really allow for that direct, real time communication. So no more back and forth with email and no more time delays.

It really puts the answers at the fingertips of research staff, which again, is going to help with the four components we talked about and ultimately improve the trial quality as well as patient safety. And so from here, I'd like to wrap up, but I'd like to do is share some additional resources for people. As I said the beginning, hopefully we peaked your interest and you'd like to know more. So the first place is to visit terracom, which is our website, where you'll find more product information.

But we also have quite an active blog. So Andrea, for example, is a regular contributor and she's written quite a lot actually on the topics of quality management site engagement and others. So you might want to look at the blog in addition to some of the other resources that we have on the website. Second, if you'd like to have a demo, you can email us at demo tech Broadcom, and we'll have one of our subject matter experts set up a demo specifically for your particular needs.

And finally, if you are on social media, we are on social media. And we love to connect with you. We're quite active on LinkedIn, but you'll also find us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and of course, we have a YouTube channel. And so with that, I Thank you for your time and attention and good day.

Making an Impact

Discover why Teckro was founded to simplify and modernize clinical trials.

Mission Driven: Our Story on Making an Impact

Founded in 2015 with a simple mission statement, this is the Teckro corporate story video in less than two minutes.

Teckro was founded on a mission to make clinical trials simpler, more accessible and transparent. This is our corporate story in less than two minutes.

Teckro was founded on a mission to simplify and modernize clinical trials. We are about making clinical trials simpler, more accessible and transparent. We believe that when immediate answers and essential guidance are accessible at the point of care, there is better protocol compliance, faster patient enrollment, and fewer errors. In the end, it reduces clinical trial costs and speeds time to market for life-saving treatments.

Watch this video for more about our corporate story.

Video: Why Teckro Set out to Simplify and Modernize Clinical Research

Teckro: Our Story on Making an Impact

Every clinical trial starts with a question. At Teckro we asked, “Why is it so complicated to run clinical trials?” We asked, “What if?”

What if you could see who is interacting with your study in real time? What if you could be certain sites? Staff always had only current approved documents. What if you could proactively implement improvements based on site feedback? What if you could deliver tailored messages with the right information at the right time for the right people? We transform your paper protocol into a digital hub of communication and collaboration. Teckro is a single cloud-based platform that provides all study stakeholders with the knowledge they need when they need it, even at the point of care.

Today, Teckro is used by large pharma and emerging biotechs to manage trials around the world, supporting all therapeutic areas, all phases and any trial model. Simple, intuitive and easy to use. There's no doubt why site staff around the world rely on Teckro: the hub for communication and collaboration. Study answers neatly in your pocket. Have a question? Teckro the answer. Visit teckro.com for more information.

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Teckro Product Overview

Closing the Gap in Clinical Trial Communication

Mission Driven: Our Story on Making an Impact

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