Jump-start study recruitment: Four websites to publicize clinical trials

No matter what type of human-subject research investigators at the School of Medicine may be working on, there are some steps that all should take to enhance patient recruitment. By posting studies on the following four websites, researchers can efficiently find the participants needed to complete projects in a timely fashion.

1. ClinicalTrials.gov

Researchers may post any human-subject study to ClinicalTrials.gov — even observational studies — to benefit from a megaphone of publicity, all underwritten by the National Institutes of Health. ClinicalTrials.gov receives 50 million unique visitors a month, and its clinical trial data is regularly fed onto patient advocacy websites and the World Health Organization’s trials database, among others.

The NIH has recently put more marketing muscle behind this database with the launch of a new website — www.cc.nih.gov/—; to promote clinical trial participation. (Remember that a certain class of interventional studies is required to be listed on ClinicalTrials.gov, and investigators must post these study results on the NIH site within a year after study completion.)

2. Stanford Clinical Trials Directory

At the same time, Stanford investigators should post their studies to the Stanford Clinical Trials Directory in order to benefit from patient outreach campaigns run by Stanford Hospital & Clinics and the School of Medicine. In addition to providing a central resource where the public can search for trials, the directory also supports the dynamic display of clinical trial information in the context of the school’s web environment. For example, a list of all trials sponsored by the Department of Otolaryngology can seamlessly be integrated into the framework of the department’s site, as shown here: stan.md/enttrials. What’s more, the sortable, well-organized Stanford database is used by Spectrum’s clinical trial hotline to inform the public or press about research studies.

To get the Stanford directory registration process started, contact Chuck Di Bari at cdibari@stanford.edu or 725-8233 for cancer trials, or contact Linda Walker at lswalker@stanford.edu or 498-6498 for all other studies.

3. CAP: Stanford’s Community Academic Profiles

Another benefit to posting studies on the Stanford Clinical Trials Directory is that this detailed clinical trials information automatically feeds into researchers’ pages on the medical school’s Community Academic Profile, or CAP, system. These profiles consistently rank at the top of Google search results, so they are an important way to communicate to the public about work taking place at Stanford, including clinical trials.
In the patient-care context, the profiles are used in the prominent “Find a Physician” function on the hospital web pages and are regularly viewed by patients researching treatment options.

4. ResearchMatch

ResearchMatch is an NIH-funded resource that connects people who are trying to find research studies with researchers looking for study participants. This free matchmaking service is available for no charge to Stanford researchers because of its membership in the NIH’s Clinical and Translational Science Award consortium. For help with ResearchMatch, contact Peg Tsao, RN, at pegt@stanford.edu.

Please call the Spectrum clinical trial support line at 498-6498 for additional assistance with study enrollment or NIH requirements.

Provided by Stanford University Medical Center