Having looked at what I consider to be the ideal method for recruiting patients – doctor referrals – I’ll share a few other thoughts on the best methods of recruiting patients as things are today.

It should be the case that research sites – especially those that are established in their area – will have sufficient numbers of relevant patients on their database to be able to recruit their target number of trial participants.

One of the things that stops this from happening effectively at most sites is the lack of resource allocated to finding patients.

And I’m not solely blaming the sites for this – it’s obviously difficult enough to make ends meet with the supposedly fair market value they’re being paid to administer trials.

But, as with the doctor referrals, if this aspect could be improved significantly – including, of course, the process of selecting the right sites – every trial should be able to fill its quota of participants every time.