| Frequently Asked Questions | |
| Q: | Is (Pi) privately held? |
| Q: | When was (Pi) founded? |
| Q: | What characteristics and services differentiate (Pi) from its competitors? |
| Q: | How does (Pi) track project status? |
| Q: | What is your turnaround time from proposal to starting the project? |
| Q: | How do you keep clients informed of the status of their projects? |
| Q: | Do you assign dedicated staff/contact for sponsor and sites for a study? Do you provide backup support of the assigned staff? |
| Q: | What recruitment strategies do you use most often? |
| Q: | How do you decide which patient recruitment strategy to use for each study? |
| Q: | How do you focus on patient retention? |
| Q: Is (Pi) privately held? A: Yes. As a division of First Marketing, (Pi) is privately held, and is part of the $2.5B Taylor Corporation, which includes over 80 sister companies. |
|
| Q: When was (Pi) founded? A: First Marketing was established in 1972, and Healthy Solutions and (Pi) Patient interaction were established in 1995, under the umbrella company TV Interactive (TVI). |
|
| Q: What characteristics and services differentiate (Pi) from its competitors? A: (Pi) PATIENT INTERACTION® is a team of professionals with great passion and integrity, who partner with clinical teams and their own partners to accelerate patient enrollment, ensure patient retention, and optimize study sites through innovative, cost-effective solutions, enabling the clinical community to move forward faster. |
|
| Q: How does (Pi) track project status? A: (Pi)’s project management approach is designed to facilitate collaboration between all stakeholders: sponsor, recruiter, call center and investigator. Work streams are detailed and calendared. All project information is posted to a password-protected, customized “extranet” with a corresponding list of milestones. Sponsor and authorized recruitment team members can track the project 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as upload notes, post articles, etc. In this way, a near real-time feedback loop is created for content issues, creative executions, success metrics and other sponsor recruitment interactions. At (Pi), the Study Supervisor orchestrates the strategic approach and interacts frequently with the various department heads (i.e. Creative Director, Web Developer, etc.) While the Project Manager is responsible for daily tracking of all active work streams, the Study Supervisor is the sponsor’s primary point of contact. Contact lists will be provided enabling the sponsor to directly contact any team member. The Study Supervisor will provide a weekly report detailing the project’s metrics. As we have many members of our creative, copywriting, production, site support, advocacy and public relations and project management staff in-house, their workload is carefully monitored and no one team member is assigned more projects than they can effectively manage. The exact number of projects is not something that can be pinpointed as each project requires various levels of output from different team members at different times throughout the project. |
|
| Q: What is your turnaround time from proposal to starting the project? A: We can begin work immediately upon the signing of a letter of intent by the sponsor. |
|
| Q: How do you keep clients informed of the status of their projects? A: All project information is posted to a password-protected, customized ‘extranet’ with a corresponding list of milestones. Sponsor and authorized recruitment team members can track the project 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as upload notes, post articles, etc. In this way, a near real-time feedback loop is created for content issues, creative executions, success metrics and other sponsor recruitment interactions. |
|
| Q: Do you assign dedicated staff/contact for sponsor and sites for a study? Do you provide backup support of the assigned staff? A: Yes. At (Pi), the Study Supervisor orchestrates the strategic approach and interacts frequently with the various department heads (i.e. Creative Director, Web Developer, etc.) While the Project Manager is responsible for daily tracking of all active work streams, the Study Supervisor is the sponsor’s primary point of contact. Contact lists will be provided enabling the sponsor to directly contact any team member. The Study Supervisor will provide a weekly report detailing the project’s metrics. As we have many members of our creative, copywriting, production, site support, advocacy and public relations and project management staff in house, their workload is carefully monitored and no one team member is assigned more projects than they can effectively manage. The exact number of projects is not something that can be pinpointed as each project requires various levels of output from different team members at different times throughout the project. (Pi) is a small, tightly knit group, in more-than-daily communication internally. The “silo-ing” that is so often a feature of larger organizations simply does not exist within (Pi). One person taking a day off never puts anything on hold, and never creates an “information void.” |
|
| Q: What recruitment strategies do you use most often? A: Nothing we do at (Pi) is perfunctory. Each campaign is specifically designed to meet the unique challenges and opportunities of an individual protocol. To that end, we provide the following services: · Enrollment feasibility
To carry out each of these services we use a mix of tactics that may include one or more of the following:
· Patient recruitment · Referring physician outreach · Patient screening · Patient retention and compliance · Site recruitment · Site analysis · Site optimization · Study coordinator training
Print production
· Direct mail pieces · Brochures · Posters/Flyers · Newsletters Broadcast production · VNRs · Television ads · Healthy Solutions TV program · Radio ads Media placement · Indoor and Outdoor advertising · Magazines · Newspapers · Radio · Web Digital media · Websites · CD ROMs · Electronic newsletters Other · (Pi)SiteSource online · ordering and fulfillment system · PRIZM®NE · Novelties/swag · Loyalty/rewards programs |
|
| Q: How do you decide which patient recruitment strategy to use for each study? A: We identify who the most probable patient is for each study by looking at the demographics and psychographics of the patient outlined in the inclusion and exclusion criteria. We then determine which subset of that population is going to have the greatest motivation to participate in this study. We then carefully craft a message for that audience to move them to consideration and employ the mediums most likely to get that message to the audience. |
|
| Q: How do you focus on patient retention? A: (Pi) measures the success of a patient retention campaign by retaining the agreed-upon number of enrollees for your study, again on budget, and using both innovative and tried-and-true strategies that help create a sense of mutual commitment and community, and an ongoing sense of appreciation and accomplishment for the enrolled patients. Site support and optimization are key retention factors for long-term studies. Rather than just focusing on the patients, (Pi) also employs tactics to help the study sites, and coordinators and investigators maintain their enthusiasm and commitment to successful and timely completion. |
|