Snapshot
I recently moderated a webinar entitled, Reduce clinical trial site burden through better workflows and fewer delays, with my colleagues Andrés Escallón, VP of eCOA Solution Strategy, and Kathy Kohler, VP of Customer Success at Suvoda. We discussed the reality that clinical trials are inherently complex: intricate protocols, highly specialized eligibility requirements, a global footprint, and technology layered in to manage all of it. That technology, designed to help, can contribute to the very burden it was meant to reduce.
Andrés illustrated this reality with an anecdote: a sponsor told him about seeing a site coordinator walking around with a hand-assembled spiral-bound notebook: logins, tracking steps, visit workflows. She trusted the notebook more than the technology. For me, that story represented something the industry has been slow to say directly: sites aren't struggling with complexity, they're absorbing it.
The distinction matters. Struggling implies a temporary state. Absorbing implies something structural: a burden designed into how we run trials and assigned, often implicitly, to the coordinators who execute them. Andrés gave us great insights into this: as technology has evolved, sites have been asked not just to absorb complexity but to be resilient in the face of it, at a pace that is becoming unsustainable.
That coordinator and her notebook capture a reality for many sites today. Andrés explained how today’s technology should be lifting the notebook out of the coordinator's hand, not adding reasons to carry it.
What sites consistently tell us they want is not complicated. Andrés referenced findings from Suvoda's recent work with industry analyst, Everest Group, regarding how sites want reliable systems that speak to one another, anticipate what a coordinator needs to do next, and reduce cognitive load rather than add to it.
Sponsors are changing how they approach site burden. They once identified a single pain point, such as travel, payments, or data capture, and funded a targeted fix. They are now taking a broader view and asking where burden exists across the full study and what they can do to reduce it.
Site payments are a useful example. Kathy pointed out that the issue is rarely whether a payment was made; it’s that sites often have no visibility into where a payment stands. Coordinators spend time tracking down status, fielding patient questions, and manually reconciling information that should already be in the system. Providing that visibility alone removes a significant volume of administrative work.
Andrés added that a meaningful shift he has seen is sponsors investing in feedback, such as site advisory boards, patient advocacy group outreach, and protocol co-design. But he also told us about the risk: listening without action is worse than not asking. The commitment to solicit feedback has to be matched by a commitment to demonstrate what was done with it.
Sites are not resistant to technology. What sites resist is change that arrives without a clear payoff—new systems that require training and process shifts before the benefit is visible.
Sites often develop workarounds that become invisible over time: a spreadsheet maintained on the side, a manual tracking step so embedded in the routine that nobody registers it as a workaround anymore.
Purpose-built technology starts by finding these workarounds—understanding where coordinators spend time, where errors cluster—and designing to eliminate that effort rather than shift it.
“Sites aren't evaluating technology based on how sophisticated it is,” Kathy said. “They're evaluating it based on whether it saves them time and reduces their effort, and whether it ultimately helps them focus more on patients.”
Successful adoption, she argued, depends less on the technology itself than on everything surrounding it: how it is implemented, how sites are trained, how quickly issues are resolved, and whether the support model fits how different regions work.
An important distinction Andrés raised was between how technology can be simply integrated versus how it can be unified. Integration means systems share data. Unification means they work as one.
The eCOA (electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment) and RTSM (Randomization and Trial Supply Management) workflow makes this concrete. Andrés described what unified looks like: a coordinator arriving at a randomization visit clicks one button, and the system surfaces diary compliance (whether the patient has completed their required electronic diary entries), lot number, and drug units together, without requiring the coordinator to check a separate system first.
Kathy brought the same logic to patient payments and travel. When patient payment activity is connected to eCOA activity, a patient who completes a diary can see a micropayment acknowledged within the same app. We’ve seen how patients value timely payments because of the immediacy and transparency with which their effort had been recognized.
For patient travel, Kathy described how travel needs can be configured at study startup alongside assessments and payment requirements. From there, the site coordinator simply places a request within the system, and a dedicated travel expert handles the rest, reducing site burden and providing peace of mind to participants and caregivers. This includes any logistical needs from local rideshare to the most complex international itineraries, and from self-serve booking to fully managed concierge support, so studies of any size or complexity get the model that fits.
All three of these scenarios shared a common thread: the technology and supporting services are doing coordination work that currently defaults to site teams.
We closed by asking Kathy and Andrés where they expect site realities to be in three to five years.
Kathy spoke about sites spending less time managing logistics, technology becoming less visible, and systems that connect and flow rather than multiply and fragment. She acknowledged that this may require different vendors, including competitors, to work together in service of the site and patient experience.
Andrés pointed to AI innovations as the shift he finds most meaningful: a coordinator who can ask the system a conversational question and get an accurate, contextual answer, or hand a task off entirely while focusing on the patient in front of them. Not more features, but instead, a fundamentally different model of interaction.
Both converge on the same conclusion: not more technology, but better technology. Technology that adapts to how sites work rather than asking sites to adapt to it.
Daniela Duffett |
Andrés Escallón |
Kathy Kohler |
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR