ACRO Expands Decentralized Clinical Trials Toolkit with Release of Change Management Resource

WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, the Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO)’s DCT Working Party releases the latest addition to its DCT Toolkit: Navigating Change During Rapid Transformation: A Question-and-Answer Resource for Decentralized Clinical Trials.

Decentralized clinical trials are here to stay. The remote, digital capabilities of DCTs provide individual, patient-centered flexibilities throughout a trial, enable a more geographically dispersed, diverse, and inclusive patient population, and can ensure trial continuity during times of disruption (for example, during the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine). Created collaboratively by members of the committee, the change management tool takes a question-and-answer approach to potential sources of stakeholder hesitance regarding DCTs to facilitate the change management required for greater DCT adoption.

“The industry has evolved to offer increasingly sophisticated tools and controls to help protect patient safety and safeguard data integrity in decentralized trials. Yet, expanded adoption of DCTs is impossible if stakeholders are not ready and comfortable in embracing this paradigm shift in clinical research. It has been a pleasure to be part of the ACRO committee that developed this new tool. We hope it will help enable the kind of change management that is needed for stakeholders to embrace the use of DCTs,” said ACRO member Jim Streeter, global vice president of life science customer success at Oracle.

The change management tool and the other DCT Toolkit assets are available to download on ACRO’s website: https://www.acrohealth.org/dctqanda/

“It has been a pleasure to participate in informal conversations with ACRO to share the change management challenges faced by sites when considering decentralized trials. Change management is not easy, and the work required for stakeholders to feel comfortable with change is just beginning. We congratulate ACRO on creating this new tool for stakeholders, and we look forward to continued conversation with ACRO on change management and other efforts to advance DCTs,” said Allyson Small, Chief Operating Officer of the Society for Clinical Research Sites (SCRS).

By releasing this change management tool, the CROs and technology providers of ACRO hope to contribute to the change management required by all stakeholders to collectively progress toward greater adoption of DCTs.

Read more about the ACROs DCT Toolkit here: https://www.acrohealth.org/dct/

About ACRO

The Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) represents clinical research and technology companies that provide a variety of specialized services to support the development of new pharmaceuticals, biologics, and medical devices. Through its member companies, ACRO helps improve the quality, efficiency, and safety of biomedical research. ACRO member companies operate in more than 100 countries across the globe and conduct or support the conduct of the majority of clinical trials worldwide.