Author: Heather Nonnemacher, Director of Services Solutions, Suvoda
Snapshot:
- Fragmented systems create burden: Sites juggle 4 to 7+ platforms daily while patients manage multiple apps and complex reimbursement processes.
- Integration drives efficiency: A unified platform enables better workflows, reduces manual data entry, and creates seamless experiences.
- Patient-first design matters: Technology should feel intuitive and consumer-grade, eliminating friction rather than adding to it.
Suvoda recently hosted a webinar, “Simplifying clinical workflows: improving patient and site experiences with the Suvoda Platform,” where I moderated a discussion with Ashley Leuthe, Associate Vice President of Clinical Finance Suite, and Elizabeth Morris, Director of Product Management, Patient Engagement.
In our conversation, we explored how integrated technology can address the persistent challenges that patients and sites face across clinical trials. These range from fragmented systems that slow down site teams to the logistical and financial barriers that make participation difficult for patients.
Two key themes emerged from the discussion: how unified platforms can create patient-centered experiences, and how smart automation reduces burden for everyone involved in the trial journey.
Clinical trials: When technology is an issue
Elizabeth shared two stories that captured a persistent challenge in clinical trials that she heard during the user research phase for Suvoda's unified patient app.
In the first story, a site coordinator had already logged into nine systems that day—before lunch. In the second story, she heard about a trial participant who found the number of systems he needed to use for completing questionnaires and waiting for payments so frustrating that he stopped answering questionnaires entirely, and the trial lost valuable data.
These incidents aren’t isolated cases. Disconnected systems create burden, both visible and invisible, across clinical trials, forcing sites to bounce between systems while patients juggle multiple apps and complicated reimbursement requests.
This form of fragmentation actively works against bringing new treatments to patients who need them. The Suvoda's merger with Greenphire in April 2025 addresses this by bringing clinical operations and financial management together on a single platform.
What patients need from clinical trial technology
When I asked Ashley and Elizabeth how Suvoda can help improve the clinical trial experience for patients, they pointed to familiar pain points: travel burden, participation costs, time away from work and family, and confusing consent forms.
The first step to solving these challenges is clear: meet the expectations patients already have from their everyday technology. They’re used to managing their healthcare through things like pharmacy apps, continuous glucose monitors, and patient portals. “People expect a consumer-type experience,” Elizabeth explained. “They know it can be easy to book a ride or make an appointment because they’ve done it somewhere else. That’s what they want and deserve.”
The challenge isn’t just being innovative. It’s reducing complexity. Patients don’t need more disconnected apps; they need technology that lets them do more with less effort. Suvoda’s unified app brings together patient payments, travel scheduling, and eCOA in one place, giving participants a single, intuitive place to manage their trial experience.
Reducing financial burden for patients
Ashley’s vision extends beyond simplifying processes to eliminating out-of-pocket costs for patients altogether. “How can we leverage the data across tools to remove the need for patients to request reimbursement?” she asked.
Suvoda’s concierge travel service already points the way—participants can book travel without paying upfront. The next step is building on that model to make zero out-of-pocket costs a reality once patients’ core technology needs are met.
What a unified clinical trial platform can do for people working or participating in clinical trials
Improving the patient experience requires better systems for everyone involved. “There are plenty of vendors out there,” Ashley explained. “But there are still too many manual processes and limited visibility into trial data.” A unified platform that connects things like financial planning and payment execution brings greater transparency and smoother workflows across the study.
Operational efficiency directly affects patient care. When sites and sponsors spend less time managing systems and fixing manual errors, they can focus more on supporting participants. For patients, that same integration enables convenience. They can do things like self-schedule visits within their available windows, coordinate with their clinician’s calendar, and even book travel all within one connected platform.
What goes into building clinical trial technology that works together?
Real tech integration requires more than making different systems look similar. “We're not just reskinning them,” Elizabeth explained. “We're doing this deep data layer underneath so that it's possible, for example, to register a participant in one product and have that information communicated to all of the other products.”
That shared data layer enables true automation. Once the full integration is done, when a patient completes a questionnaire in eCOA, a payment can process automatically. When a participant is randomized in IRT, travel support can become immediately available. Information can flow between systems and trigger auditable actions across the platform.
Ashley described how this can work in Suvoda’s financial products, “For day-to-day site staff, the benefits are seen through reduced manual effort and faster, more predictable processes. For instance, when IRT visit schedules align with payment milestones, real-time participant activity data from IRT enables quicker payments without waiting for EDC entry, data cleaning, or verification. Today, screen failure payments are often delayed due to manual EDC entry, but by leveraging IRT data, these payments can be triggered automatically as soon as the event occurs, reducing delays and helping sites to be paid more promptly.” The system can also identify overpayments or underpayments and generate appropriate credit notes without manual calculation.
When technology gets out of the way, the way forward gets easier
A practical measure of good clinical trial technology is whether it quietly does its job in the background. It should allow patients to focus on their health instead of reimbursement processes, sites to support participants instead of wrestling with logins, and sponsors to make informed decisions without hunting for data.
Ashley shared a story that brings this home. A close friend's husband sadly has brain cancer and is participating in a trial as a last resort. “They both still have to work. They have to travel to research sites early in the morning. When you are participating in these trials, on top of everything, your life doesn't stop.”
“It's not just the physical, it's the emotional aspects as well. It’s very hard. So anything we can do to simplify a trial is key.”
When technology works the way it should, it fades into the background so that everyone can focus on what matters: advancing medicine and supporting people through one of the most challenging experiences of their lives.
Authors
Heather Nonnemacher
Director of Services Solutions,
Suvoda