Communicate regularly with stakeholders and referring providers
Conduct regular staff meetings to discuss trial accrual
- At this point in the lifecycle of a clinical trial, your entire team is taking notice of what is working and what needs improvement. Provide specific opportunities to keep everyone up-to-date on accrual and to open the door to helpful input from the team. When you make clinical trials (and accrual to trials) part of the normal “conversation” among staff, recruitment can get much easier.
Regularly communicate the trial’s accrual status to key staff/stakeholders and seek feedback
- Effective communication and establishing a rapport are key to keeping referring physicians, community partners, and others positively engaged in recruitment. Don’t just talk about accrual progress and adjustments within your own team; keep others at your institution as well as external stakeholders in the loop. Encourage their continued commitment and emphasize approaches that work. If accrual is not going well, talk about the difficulties and stay open to suggestions. It is almost always better to talk about recruitment difficulties when they are first detected and potentially easier to solve.
Literature and Tools (19)

Clin Trials. 2013 Jan 18. [Epub ahead of print]
KEYWORDS: Language or Cultural Barriers, Staff Experience Level, Physician Champions, Women, Minority Groups, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Asian, Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Verbal Communications, Radio, TV, Web, Print Media, Brochure or Flyer, Letter, Cancer, Prevention

J Res Nurs. 2011 Jul 01. 16. 4. 321-32.
KEYWORDS: Level of Clinical Trials Knowledge or Awareness, Incentives, Attitudes, Institutional Issues

Cancer. 2012 Oct 01. 118. 19. 4801-5.
KEYWORDS: Knowledge/Attitudes/Beliefs, Attitudes, Consent, Verbal Communications, Cancer

International Journal of Stroke. 2012 Aug. 7. 6. 447-53.
KEYWORDS: Institutional Issues, Inadequate Staffing, Eligibility, Web, Non-Cancer

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press; 2012.
KEYWORDS: Verbal Communications