Remote communication has become more popular in recent years, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased need for social distancing. Teleconferencing and online meetings have been employed in situations that have always happened primarily, if not always, in person.
Such is the case with telemedicine, which has been largely implemented by doctors and other health care providers to ensure the safety of staff and patients. Teleconsultation has other benefits that go beyond the avoidance of physical contact, which is why its use has extended to cover even more areas of the healthcare sector. In this article, we explore the use of remote communication solutions in clinical research and the benefits of partnering with a CRO (Contract Research Organization) that is up to date with the latest technological developments.
What You Will Learn in This Article ?
- The role of telemedicine in healthcare and clinical studies
- All about remote clinical studies solutions
- The benefits of using these solutions
- Challenges in implementing remote processes and how to overcome them
Remote Communication in Healthcare
Teleconsultation allows doctors, nurses and other health care workers to communicate with patients who are geographically distant through digital means and teleconferencing platforms or video phone calls. Remote communication can be used in diagnosing and to give treatment recommendations. It can also be used in communication between two healthcare providers, such as consultations between two doctors.
The term also refers to asynchronous communication, as long as it is done via digital communication tools. It can also be used to monitor symptoms and disease progression and to give feedback on treatments. The focus of this article is the use of digital platforms in clinical research, which will be carefully explored in the next sections.

The Role of Teleconsultation in Clinical Studies
Clinical trials are an essential part of the development of new drugs and treatments. To determine if a new medical product is safe and effective and to comply with national and international regulations, manufacturers need to dedicate a lot of time and resources to clinical studies. These studies frequently involve the participation of a large team of researchers and groups of patients.
Therefore, teleconsultation plays an important role in enhancing clinical trials. They can be used not only for direct communication between researchers and patients, but also in several other stages of a clinical trial, such as giving consent to participate, organizing patient’s data and assessing the outcomes of the study. The remote features of these solutions are what allow CROs to conduct decentralized clinical trials.
New and innovative solutions include elements such as econsent forms and electronic PROs (Patient-Reported Outcomes) forms. In clinical studies, remote consultation allows CROs to optimize many of its processes, by reducing the time and financial expenses which are required by in person activities (visits to the study site, filling of paper-based forms, monitoring).
Example: Feasibility of Telemonitoring in a Clinical Trial
Telemonitoring is an example of how remote communication can be used in clinical studies. Researchers from three medical institutions in France conducted a study to assess the feasibility of using telemonitoring and remote patient-reported outcomes in cancer clinical trials.
Patients responded to the PRO questionnaire with a digital tool, which was personalized to their pathology and treatment. The data generated was evaluated by an algorithm, classifying patients into 4 different states. The researchers concluded that “remote monitoring in clinical trials is feasible, with a high level of patient participation and satisfaction”. Moreover, using telemonitoring not only benefited patients, but it improved the quality of the clinical trial because it allowed for “early management of adverse events and better knowledge of the tolerance profile of experimental treatments”.
Teleconsultation Solutions
If you are partnering with an experienced CRO, you may know that they can utilize a comprehensive digital solution to enhance clinical trials and increase efficiency. These platforms offer a wide range of digital services, enabling many of the research tasks to be done remotely.
Remote consultation and communication will be employed to optimize your study’s timeline management, patient recruitment, data collection and monitoring, study site monitoring, and more. These are some of the clinical studies’ procedures that can be done with these platforms:
- Online recruitment: Participants from a wide coverage area can be recruited through various channels using online communication.
- Econsent: Electronic based forms allow patients to read and review consent forms at their own pace and from their own devices, as well as signing them electronically and having their questions about the study answered promptly.
- Participant onboarding: As well as giving consent, participants can be informed on the study’s objectives, risks and possible outcomes remotely via teleconferencing and online communication tools.
- EDC (Electronica Data Capture): Allows data to be collected, analyzed and exported. Researchers can also design research studies, build online forms and monitor the study’s progress remotely.
- Telemedicine: consultations between patients and researchers can be done remotely, reducing the number of visits to the study site.
- PROs: Patient-Reported Outcomes forms can be created, sent, filled in and stored electronically, reducing paperwork.
The Benefits
Remote communication has brought many benefits to the healthcare sector. From improving patients’ experience to protecting healthcare workers, many are the reasons why televisits have been more and more employed by clinics and hospitals. Clinical studies also benefit immensely from the digitalization of services, remote control of the research and online communication with participants.
Some of the benefits of investing in remote clinical studies are:
- Improving overall quality and efficiency: By digitalizing and automatizing several processes, the risk of human error is reduced. Remote clinical trial monitoring and data collection allow researchers to focus on the most crucial elements of research, because they do not need to waste time and resources on trips to the study site and manual data management.
- Reducing paperwork and travelling: There are environmental benefits of remote consultations and monitoring. CROs use less energy and resources and reduce their carbon footprint by digitalizing paperwork and avoiding unnecessary transportation.
- Increasing safety and privacy: The best platforms offer robust data management systems which allow better protection of patient’s private data, with tokenization and encryption.
- Reducing costs: Reducing paperwork and in-person meetings is not only beneficial to the environment, but it also helps companies to reduce costs with data management and storage, and with transportation.
- Widening the pool of participants: Because participants do not need to travel to the study site as frequently as when everything needed to be done in person, patients from more locations can be recruited. This enriches clinical research and improves the quality of the data delivered.
- Allowing more personalized patient care: Larger amounts of data can be more easily managed using comprehensive clinical research solutions. This allows researchers to build a strong and complete database of patients and customize communication to different groups of patients and to diverse needs.
- Enhancing patient’s experience: Recruiting and retention rates are higher when patients are satisfied with their experience as voluntary participants in a clinical trial. Teleconferencing offers the benefit of reducing financial and logistical burden on patients, who can learn about the study, ask questions, give consent, and give feedback in the comfort of their own homes and using their own devices.
- Integrating with other clinical research tools: Digital platforms have been in use for some time and there may be parts of the clinical trials that were already being made with digital tools. A good digital solution integrates seamlessly with all other systems in place.
- Compliance with regulatory requirements: The platforms’ functionalities for study design and monitoring can be adapted to be in line with the relevant regulatory requirements, helping manufacturers to stay compliant.
- Challenges in Implementing a New Technology Solution.

Challenges in Implementing a New Technology Solution
As with any innovative solution, there are some challenges in implementing new clinical research solutions because of the resistance to change and people’s attachment to traditional methods. However, the benefits of using teleconsultation in clinical studies far outweigh the challenges. Moreover, the few cons of using these solutions can be easily avoided with tested strategies. The table below shows three challenges you may encounter while conducting your clinical study, and a suggested action you can take
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Summarize
- Teleconsultation allows health care workers to communicate with patients who are geographically distant.
- They can also be used in several other stages of a clinical trial, such as giving consent to participate, organizing patient’s data and assessing the outcomes of the study.
- Remote consultation can be employed to optimize a study’s timeline management, patient recruitment, data collection and monitoring, study site monitoring, and more.
- Some of the benefits we discussed are: improving overall quality and efficiency, increasing safety and privacy, reducing costs, widening the pool of participants, allowing more personalized patient care and enhancing patient’s experience.
- There are some challenges in implementing innovative technology solutions but the benefits far outweigh the challenges and they can be easily avoided with tested strategie