Is every day Groundhog Day in Clinical Operations?
Groundhog Day is a popular tradition observed in both the US and Canada during February.
In a movie of the same name, the main character, a news reporter, travels to cover the annual Groundhog Day event in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania. However, he soon finds himself stuck in a time loop, and is forced to relive Groundhog Day perpetually.
The movie’s story line is reminiscent of some Clinical Operations workflows and processes that we get stuck doing over and over! Things like manually updating spreadsheet trackers, preparing dashboards to assess study status against their timelines, or sending the same access request instructions to a new colleague. Though they appear so simple, in totality, they consume hours per week. On the bright side, we can make small changes to make clin ops workflows more efficient.
How to make common clin ops workflows more efficient
- Tracker updates and dashboard visualization – for this we recommend ClinOps Pro!
ClinOps Pro is Seascape’s Clinical Operations Oversight Solution. ClinOps Pro automates tracker updates and generates insightful dashboards. Most importantly, it does this while reducing effort and complexity.
- Email templates
If you or your team sends weekly updates to cross-functional groups, create email templates with tables or sections that can be easily updated. A template allows you to focus on swapping out old information for new over drafting a new email from scratch eacn time.
- Distribution lists
These remove the guesswork of who to send emails to. Usually, teams make too few distribution lists. It’s especially helpful to make distribution lists for key recurring email updates or form-related processes. Lists help avoid accidental omission of key stakeholders. After one use, you can type the first couple characters of the address, and the ‘To” line should automatically populate the distribution email address.
- Study specific training process documents
When a new person joins your team, you can direct them to these. Some ideas include (but are definitely not limited to): budget negotiation, change order approval, ICF review, or to how to address or route IRB/EC questions. These will reduce the time it takes to train or retrain team members. Or, it allows you to train team members with a lighter touch than you would if the details weren’t available for them to reference later.
- On-boarding plans
These differ from the above doc type in that they orient new team members to a new clinical trial or project. This plan should list: key meetings, stakeholders, systems, links, and training assignments. Again, you can review the plan at a high level with the new team member but then leave them to explore the links and complete assignments on their own.
- Systems access management guide
Getting new team members access to systems ASAP ensures that they can start contributing to the project immediately. This guide outlines how to request new user access (who, what, where), from your standard systems (EDC, IXRS, Shared Drive, etc.).
- PowerPoint templates
Create a different template for recurring meetings or trainings. These will allow allow you to avoid re-formatting slides with new layouts and tables so you can focus on just updating information.
These tips will all make your Clin Ops workflows more efficient.
The more mundane repetitive tasks you eliminate, the more time you have for meaningful and creative work.
We hope you found this guidance useful! Let us know (marketing@seascapeclinical.com) if you have any suggestions that help to automate your clin ops tasks.