{"id":608434,"date":"2024-06-07T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-07T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/aligning-patient-burden-with-planetary-burden\/"},"modified":"2024-06-07T23:02:04","modified_gmt":"2024-06-08T03:02:04","slug":"aligning-patient-burden-with-planetary-burden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/platohealth.ai\/aligning-patient-burden-with-planetary-burden\/","title":{"rendered":"Aligning Patient Burden with Planetary Burden","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
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Michael Cohen, Senior Director, Lead, Environmental Sustainability<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Robyn Owens, Manager, Recruitment and Engagement<\/em><\/p>\n

Both with the PPD clinical research business of Thermo Fisher Scientific<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Americans spend on average 38 minutes driving to the doctor for routine medical care1<\/sup> or approximately 20 miles round trip. Yet for clinical studies, we require our patients to sit in their cars for more than seven times as long for an average round trip of 134 miles. And rare disease patients experience even more travel, up to approximately 270 miles (albeit perhaps more likely in airplanes).2<\/sup><\/p>\n

This significant discrepancy between routine medical care and clinical trial visits highlights the fact that travel is a \u201ckey barrier to recruitment and retention\u2026[and] may [even] be a bigger problem than previously thought.\u201d2 <\/sup>This should sound a warning bell for clinical trial operations experts as we already know that distance traveled to the site is a key driver in a patient\u2019s decision to join a clinical study. Patients have told us that the maximum distance that they want to travel to a clinical trial site is 80 miles round trip.3<\/sup> So why do we expect patients to travel so much further for a clinical study? How is this negatively impacting our patients, and further, how is it impacting the planet? What is the effect of clinical trial patient visits annually around the world?<\/p>\n

Let us take the more than 350,000 registered interventional studies on ClinicalTrials.gov.4<\/sup> If we conservatively assume 200 patients per trial with only 10 visits annually, that is about 37 million global patient visits per year.<\/p>\n

Based on literature data, our clinical trial patients are spending more than an extra hour round trip to travel to clinical investigative sites compared to the distance they drive for routine medical care. These extra miles compared to the routine medical care visits result in the emission of about 21 megatons of greenhouse gases. This is the same volume of emissions as 3.6 coal-fired power plants annually, or one million American households. That\u2019s just due to our patients driving further to clinical trial sites than they would to their doctor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

As we consider this fact, it is critical to realize the patient and planetary toll. We already know the immense difficulties of recruiting and retaining patients in clinical trials, while literature, experience, and everyday common sense tells us that the further a patient must drive for a clinical trial visit, the less likely they are to join and stay in a clinical study.<\/p>\n

Consider a few potential strategies to reduce patient burden, planetary burden, or both in relation to travel to clinical trial sites:<\/p>\n