Articles – Pro-ficiency

Building Patient Trust with Next-Generation Clinical Trial Training

May 28, 2024/in Articles, Blog, Clinical Trials, Simulation/by Will Ewart

Patient trust is critical to ensuring adequate enrollment and retention of clinical trial participants. If patients lack trust in the capabilities of the investigators, nurses and other staff conducting a clinical trial, they are less likely to enroll in a study, and even if they do, they are more likely to drop out if their trust is rocked at any point by shaky performance of trial procedures.

The way that clinical researchers are trained can play a key role in building the necessary trust. The more confidence patients have in the knowledge and abilities of research staff, the more comfortable they are likely to be with the trial processes—and the more likely they are to enroll and remain in the trial for the duration.

Simulation-based training, such as that provided by Pro-ficiency, can play a crucial role in increasing patient comfort levels with clinical trial participation. By offering realistic scenarios, this type of training lets clinical research professionals hone their skills in a risk-free environment. This immersive approach based on realistic scenarios bolsters their qualification and competence, so researchers are better equipped to conduct trial procedures smoothly and effectively, leading to a more comfortable experience for patients.

Most trial participants are unaware of how sponsors conduct training on protocols or that the traditional approach relies on slide decks, a method that most patients would likely view as worrying. Additionally, the pharma industry in general faces challenges related to mistrust. In clinical research, any uncertainty displayed in describing or performing protocol procedures can exacerbate any reservations a potential study participant may feel. And this can drive both low enrollment and participant drop-out after a study begins.

Patients want to be confident that the investigator or research nurse is providing the right dose on the right day, for instance, and that the team has all the tools necessary to execute the trial correctly. That puts a burden on research teams to demonstrate to patients that they have sufficient knowledge, skill and understanding to overcome that underlying suspicion—a burden that is difficult to overcome without thorough training.

A 2021 blog post from Medidata emphasizes the foundation of trust in clinical trials. It highlights the needs for clear communication to ensure that participants comprehend study procedures early in the process. This then sets the stage for more impactful communications throughout the trial, which further fosters trust between the patient and the research team.

Medidata writes, “To build trust with clinical trial participants, it’s important they understand precisely what is being done and why, early in the process. With that established, the communications that follow will have more impact and help establish trust throughout the trial experience.“

And sometimes, a simple solution is the most effective. In this case, innovative training that successfully alters the behavior of healthcare providers conducting clinical trials and improves performance of all clinical trial procedures can play a key role in building and retaining patient confidence and trust.

Training that ensures competence in all trial procedures can play a major role in presenting trial information in a way that assures patients and their families that participation will be a positive experience.

Proven Performance Results

Simulation training, such as that provided by Pro-ficiency, provides research teams with the chance to practice. Immediate feedback helps to guide research staff to develop better decision-making skills. The intuitive dashboard allows tracking of performance within and across sites.

This training approach immerses coordinators, investigators and other research staff in realistic scenarios, which helps to ensure that they are well-prepared to both describe and perform procedures accurately, giving participants more confidence in a trial. By providing a risk-free environment to practice and gain skill and understanding, a simulation-based training platform enables research staff to confidently interact with patients, conveying accurate information and addressing any concerns they may have. This ensures that patients receive clear and consistent communication throughout their participation in the trial, enhancing their overall experience and likelihood of enrollment.

Real-time performance analytics of sites allows sponsors to see where gaps or weak areas may exist and to focus on the areas where training is most needed.

This type of training has proven over time to be extremely effective in improving performance. For instance, Elio Mazzone et al. noted in a paper in the August 2021 Annals of Surgery that proficiency-based progression simulation training was more effective than traditional training in reducing procedural errors and increasing the number of correct steps taken. A key, the paper said, lies in continuous feedback and the ability to repeat tasks until they are done correctly.

Why? Virtual simulations of realistic, protocol-specific scenarios provide the opportunity to replicate real-world situations, providing an environment that invites engagement and builds accessible professional knowledge, rather than providing just abstract learning of content from static materials. At its heart, simulation technology achieves a complex, meaningful interactivity, allowing users to construct and test hypotheses and receive feedback in response to their actions in a risk-free, persistent environment. Learners can actively and rigorously develop needed skills by facing simulated challenges, seen in David Hadden’s previous protocol deviation article.

And the proof is in the pudding. In 2010, an analysis was conducted of data from a country-wide deployment in East Africa for the CDC. Every healthcare professional in the country was trained on a rigorous HIV treatment protocol

One past webinar, Imagine a world without Protocol Deviations’, illustrated the results of that training. A green circle represents a clinician who executed a simulated patient encounter with an acceptable level of clinical variance. The graphic on the left shows a pass rate of 69%. The graphic on the right shows that the pass rate increased to 97% after simulation training.

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These factors become especially important for larger, international studies. With more research sites involved, there can be greater variation among capabilities, which can lead to protocol deviations. And when international sites are involved, complications related to language and culture can challenge research sponsors to provide training that meets all the different needs at myriad sites.

Pro-ficiency provides a dashboard that displays the predictive performance analytics in real-time and spread geographically according to the distribution of sites and teams. Pro-ficiency’s dashboard of training metrics can provide just such an outline, making it easy to highlight where language or cultural barriers may exist and allowing agile development of custom modules to address those challenges. This proactive methodology has been discussed here previously.

Another benefit of simulation is that the knowledge gained tends to stick with learners better than lecture-based methods. The ability to practice tasks and procedures virtually in a risk-free environment allows employees to develop accurate muscle memory that helps them perform optimally in real-world situations.

This is especially important when it comes to developing skill and proficiency in procedures that differ from the standard of care. The ability to smoothly perform and explain novel techniques or procedures to patients is critical to ensuring patients are comfortable with trial participation.

Pro-ficiency’s platform, for instance, reduces the likelihood of errors or complications during a trial that involves novel treatments by immersing learners in lifelike scenarios. Knowing that the healthcare providers treating them during a clinical trial are well-qualified and competent in protocol-specific procedures goes a long way toward instilling trust and reassurance in patients.

Proactive problem-solving

Simulation training also allows for proactive addressing of problems in a consequence-free environment before a trial even begins. When problems are only addressed after they occur in a live clinical trial, patient trust can erode. Identifying and addressing issues up front, on the other hand, can boost patient trust in the trial and the team implementing it.

A lot of distrust in the pharma industry and in the clinical trials it sponsors can be linked to the industry’s tendency to address problems only after they occur.

But Pro-ficiency’s training packages, for instance, include analytics that are just as important as the training itself. This information can help managers track not only progress in completing the protocol-specific training, but also provide invaluable information about how well individuals and sites perform as they move through the training.

The immediate feedback and analytics offer extra support and guidance to individuals or sites struggling with any aspect of the protocol. This real-time assessment allows for timely intervention and remediation, ensuring that research staff are adequately prepared to conduct the trial procedures and interact with patients effectively. By addressing areas of difficulty promptly, Pro-ficiency contributes to the overall success of the trial and improves patient satisfaction and retention.

In other words, if staff can complete the simulated activities successfully, the training itself proves their competency. For instance, if 70% of a cohort failed in the first attempt at a simulated procedure, the organization would know that was a problem area in the protocol that needed to be addressed.

The design of the training modules allows high achievers to move easily through the material at which they already excel, while learning new procedures or practices at a suitable rate. Meanwhile, those with less knowledge or experience are carefully guided to making the correct decisions.

Investigator meetings can then be used to address any remaining pain points, using the performance analytics to guide those conversations. This will help ensure that training remains focused on crucial issues without wasting investigators’ time.

This level of training helps to ensure that investigators, coordinators, research nurses and other staff thoroughly understand the study and its procedures before they speak with patients. Not only does this help them execute the study without error, it also gives them the in-depth understanding necessary to confidently explain a trial to potential enrollees and to answer their questions easily and correctly.

With this deep understanding, research teams can focus on building relationships with patients, rather than on remembering details of the clinical trial protocol.

In conclusion, the pivotal question emerges: If patients were aware of how their HCPs were trained for trials, would they still enroll? Transparency about site performance, completion reports, and the success of top sites could potentially influence patient enrollment decisions. These considerations prompt a reevaluation of our current practices, urging us to embrace transformative approaches to clinical trial training for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Simulation-based training has a well-documented track record of producing competence among healthcare professionals. Pro-ficiency’s platform leverages this proven effectiveness, providing research staff with the skills and confidence necessary to conduct clinical trials successfully. By offering realistic simulations and comprehensive training modules, Pro-ficiency equips research staff with the tools they need to navigate protocol procedures and patient interactions with proficiency and professionalism.

Will Ewart

Will Ewart serves as Director of Strategic Partnerships at Pro-ficiency, a leading provider of simulation-based training for clinical trials, Will plays a pivotal role in forging strong relationships with biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and contract research organizations. His primary objective is to design tailored solutions that not only mitigate protocol deviations but also fortify patient safety, ultimately elevating the overall quality of study outcomes.

The Power of Gamification in Clinical Trial Training

April 30, 2024/in Articles, Blog, Immersive Content, Simulation/by Grant Fowler

Gamification has become a buzzword in recent years, taking center stage in various industries such as education. But it’s often misunderstood and underutilized. Simply put, it’s making processes more game-like to engage users better. The video game industry, boasting titles like Candy Crush, knows the key to player engagement lies in those rewarding little endorphin rushes. However, gamification is not just about points and bright flashes. It is also about understanding what drives users to engage with content. When we bring this concept to the realm of clinical trial training, the results are fascinating, especially with Pro-ficiency’s unique approach.

At first glance, gamification and clinical trials seem worlds apart. Yet, they share common ground when simulations come into play. Unlike the repetitive matching of colored squares in Candy Crush, clinical trial simulations empower site teams, investigators, and doctors to take an active role in decision-making, altering the game’s results.

Why Simulations Work for Clinical Trial Training

The benefits that gamification, specifically simulation training, have for clinical trial site teams is immense, and Pro-ficiency has tapped into this approach’s immense potential.

Conscious Choices with Real Outcomes: Unlike typical games where the aim is to score points, Pro-ficiency’s simulations immerse users in scenarios where their decisions lead to actual outcomes. This hands-on approach, paired with real-time feedback, ensures that users remain actively engaged.
Engaging Multimedia Content: Traditionally tedious subjects come alive through captivating videos, interactive graphics, and audio clips. This not only grabs attention but also enhances information retention.
First-person Immersion: Some of Pro-ficiency’s simulations are presented from a first-person viewpoint, which puts users into patient interactions, making the learning process more personal and relatable.
Self-Guided Exploration: One size doesn’t fit all. Recognizing this, Pro-ficiency allows users to explore at their own pace, fostering a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
A Stress-Free Learning Environment: The fear of making mistakes can hamper the learning process. Pro-ficiency’s simulations turn mistakes into valuable teaching moments, creating an environment conducive to growth.
Meaningful Performance Metrics: Pro-ficiency “grades” and “ranks” users compared to their peers, fostering a sense of healthy competition and camaraderie.

Gamification has been used in education for years with obvious benefits. A 2019 study from the Journal for Nurses in Professional Development found that gamification had a positive effect on the orientees’ motivation and knowledge retention. Another 2014 study from the Postgraduate Medical Journal found statistically significant increases in knowledge retention over time using gamification with graduate students.

Traditional static training struggles to impart the same benefits. Users often struggle with retention and engagement when material is presented statically. Simulations enable clinicians to gain a deep-seated knowledge of their work, protocols, and patients. They also provide a safe haven to make and learn from mistakes before they become a larger issue in the real world.

Click here to learn more about Pro-ficiency’s use of gamification in our simulation-based methodologies.

Panorama: Customized Thought Leader Data and Insights for Life Sciences Companies

January 30, 2024/in Articles, Blog, Commercial, Medical Affairs, Panorama/by Murry Alper

One of the key factors in the success of a new medical product is how well-accepted it is among healthcare practitioners (HCPs) and patients, both during development and upon commercialization. Life sciences companies often rely on thought leaders—sometimes also called opinion leaders—to help both spread information about a new product and to better target development and marketing efforts for new drugs or medical devices. And to use these individuals to their best potential, companies need to be able to quickly and easily identify which thought leaders are most important for their particular products.

Healthcare thought leaders or opinion leaders can be a factor in both recruiting patients to participate in clinical trials and maximizing acceptance of new products after commercialization. Thought leaders are looked to for insight on new products or treatments by both HCPs and patient communities. They can play a key role in increasing awareness of new commercial and investigational products, educating their peers about when and how new products may best be used and providing a sense of credibility among both HCPs and patients.

Thought leaders generally are trusted and well-respected individuals with proven expertise in a particular field. They can include prominent physicians, hospital executives, health system directors and researchers. They also may include less well-known professionals that have close ties to a particular patient or disease community.

Digital thought leaders—who make broad use of social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter and others to engage with and educate HCPs and patients—are also growing in importance. These thought leaders can be particularly effective in helping to drive information to the most relevant audiences by making use of social media algorithms to reach both the broadest and most-well-targeted audiences.

Finding key thought leaders

Many developers, manufacturers and contract research organizations (CROs) have their own internal processes for maintaining information about opinion leaders that they either have tapped for expertise in the past or have been following in anticipation of seeking their help with future products. But these—typically gleaned from a variety of sources, like applications, websites or internal tracking documentation, among others—are likely to have gaps in actionable information on their thought leaders.

For companies that have not developed such an internal resource, database service providers do exist. But use of generic, one-size-fits-all database providers will likely lack the specificity needed to meet each company’s or product’s individual needs. A generic database may, for instance, fail to take into consideration the needs and nuances of a specific company’s or team’s organization, objectives and strategies. A company’s insight-gathering needs may also be dependent on a particular patient population, disease state or other factors that cannot be fully captured with a generic database service.

A customized approach is more suitable to life sciences companies that are developing a wide array or product types for a range of disease states. For instance, Panorama, a thought leader management application acquired by Pro-ficiency earlier this year as part of Compass Group Partners, includes a database that can be configured specifically for an individual company’s specific needs and organizational structure. It can be geared specifically to target and manage information on thought leaders most important a specific disease state or therapeutic area, as well as include all the elements involved in strategic thought leader engagement planning. This negates the need for companies/team members to go to multiple data sources, as well as work in multiple documents where collaboration and version management are challenges.

Key factors to customization

This customization is borne out of a deep dive to understand not only each organization’s information needs, but also how teams are structured and how they work together and communicate. The customized database is then structured so that the information most important to the organization is quickly and easily accessible via an intuitive, customized dashboard.

The easy-to-use dashboard allows users to easily find information based on a variety of filters, from therapeutic expertise to affiliation to geographic location. The goal is to ensure that the application is configured to make the information most important to the company readily available. This includes the ability to easily generate needed reports and any other functionality that each individual company needs.

Information on thought leaders needs to be extensive, including their specific areas of expertise, affiliations, publications and clinical trials they have conducted, if applicable.

Panorama provides customization based on a deep understanding of the company, the teams that will be using the database, what their objectives are and how progress toward those objectives is measured. Key factors in providing customization include understanding:

Brand or franchise objectives;
How the company or team is organized; and
The objectives and priorities for various levels of the team, which could include everything from providing updates on insights or engagement to senior management, to helping develop engagement plans with thought leaders.

And that level of customization doesn’t end with delivery of the product and training in its use. It’s equally important for sponsors to be able to modify the database over time according to business needs. Panorama is an adaptive platform, allowing end-users to add or subtract filters—such as disease state or geographical region—easily.

Panorama offers a true strategic partnership that includes ongoing support to ensure the tool can be used to its maximum capacity. This can include continual refinement of insight gathering and engagement plans and the ability to shift easily to capture evolving objectives with thought leaders, including advocacy development for commercial users.

Differing division demands

For clients that develop and/or manufacture therapies, the ability to differentiate between the needs and regulatory constraints of medical affairs and marketing teams is an important factor. Regulations for each of those efforts can be diametrically opposed. For instance, while marketing teams often develop advocates from thought leaders, medical affairs professionals are often prohibited from doing so.

Conversely, marketing is usually only allowed to talk about the approved labeling information for each individual product. Medical affairs staff, however, can be more speculative, while CROs, by their very nature, must discuss off-label exploratory uses of therapies.

This disparity means that most companies often end up using different platforms for clinical development, medical affairs and commercial marketing. But that means comprehensive information needed by each division may not be readily available.

Being able to rely on a single system or platform to access appropriate information for each of those divisions could streamline both development and marketing efforts.

Potential clinical applications

Although much work with opinion leaders is focused on commercial or near-commercial products, they can also play a role at the R&D and clinical development stages.

Here, access to opinion leaders can boost a sponsor’s ability to accurately identify potential investigators. Some may themselves be sought-after investigators for clinical trials in their areas of expertise. Others may be experts in evaluating protocols.

Sponsors may also use thought leaders and their networks to help identify research sites with expertise in particular disease states and capacity to deliver sufficient patients from the target populations. Enrollment is always a top concern for new drug and device sponsors when developing a clinical trial protocol; being able to quickly identify sites and investigators with access to specific patient populations can avoid problems related to selecting a “wrong” site for a particular study.

For such purposes, understanding opinion leaders’ networks is especially important. Key information to be tracked can include who an expert has published papers with, where they have made presentations, where they earned their medical degree or gained a fellowship and what hospitals or universities they are affiliated with, which can highlight the degree to which they may interact with practicing physicians.

Bottom line: Access to the right thought leaders is crucial to the success of medical products. Sponsors need to not only identify opinion leaders, but also to understand what they do, where they do it and who they are connected to through their networks. Having a comprehensive, easy-to-navigate, adaptable database, like Panorama, at their fingertips will make that job much easier for them.

Visit https://www.pro-ficiency.com/panorama/ to discover how Panorama’s KOL management capabilities can help your team.

Murry Alper

Murry Alper brings almost 30 years of experience in the Life Sciences industry, with experience at both major manufacturers, as well as on the agency side. Murry founded Caravel Group in 2006 after a decade in marketing and sales roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb and Genentech. He has co-founded multiple medical communications agencies and was Managing Partner of Compass Group Partners upon its purchase by QHP Capital in June of 2023. He is currently Chief Commercial Markets Officer at Pro-ficiency where he leads medical communications, marketing strategy and innovation efforts.

Creating Quality by Committing to Compliance in Clinical Research

December 13, 2023/in Articles, Blog/by Robin Newman

In the highly regulated world of clinical research, compliance is an ongoing concern, but can be viewed as an annoying and costly item to check off a regulatory to-do list. And it can cost a great deal of money, not to mention valuable staff time, to be compliant, especially at the front end of a study.

But establishing systems to ensure compliance up front can pay off in spades, primarily by removing most of the “noise”—glitches in operational systems that can make it difficult to quickly and easily determine whether there is a problem with an investigational product or if the problem stems from a systemic issue.

At its most basic, compliance is adherence to a set of standards or regulations. In the clinical research arena, compliance involves, broadly, performance standards and safety standards, for instance. Compliance with applicable standards and regulations is necessary to create a minimally viable product.

Clinical research involves multiple parties, each with their own particular compliance responsibilities. For instance, drug and device sponsors must make investigational products in accordance with GMPs/QSR requirements, respectively, as well as meet regulatory requirements for submitting information generated during a study.

At the research site level, IRBs lay out guidelines and standards within their own communities of research sites. Sites also must adhere to strict ethical standards, requirements for specific grant-funded efforts and internal policies.

By complying with all such requirements, clinical trials are better able to ensure that they perform optimally, meet defined endpoints and deliver the investigative treatment in a safe manner, while ensuring patient safety.

Compliance vs quality

It’s impossible to discuss compliance without also considering quality; regulations and performance standards are intended, after all, to ensure a good quality product. But while the two concepts are linked, they are not the same.

Quality involves factors such as useability, durability, utility, affordability, accessibility and other things that influence how a product is experienced by the users. It’s possible to build a compliant product that is not of good quality. But without compliance. When it comes to clinical research, the notion of quality revolves around the patient experience.

Compliance focuses on adherence to regulations and standards. Because those regulations and standards generally are written with the goal of product quality in mind, it’s harder to achieve important quality-related factors like reproducibility and consistency, without compliance.

It is, however, possible for a product or clinical trial to be compliant and still yield a poor-quality product or inadequate research in terms of those factors. This is usually due to a checklist approach to compliance.

Many in the industry tend to view compliance activities in that way, as an onerous task involving a lot of fussy checklists, paper work and documentation. In reality, compliance needs to focus on high-reliability systems that can meet all safety and other basic requirements, including patient needs.

Without systems in place to ensure compliance with all pertinent regulations and standards, problems can occur during the trial that ultimately are more costly. These systems can include SOPs, templates, work aids and other tools that help researchers perform consistently both throughout an individual study and across multiple studies.

Noncompliance comes with costs

Noncompliance during a clinical trial can cause regulatory problems that up the cost of a clinical trial, as well as pose risks to patients and affect data quality. The time required to complete a clinical trial can be extended significantly in the face of noncompliance, whether that is regulatory, protocol deviations or amendments or other problems.

Failure to meet all regulatory requirements can delay time to new product approval. This applies to IRB requirements and other standards, as well. Addressing such problems—including finding the root cause—can add time and expense to a study.

More than that, not all costs can be measured only in dollars and cents. Noncompliance can damage a company’s or research site’s reputation. And the ultimate cost of not following the rules in the medical field is risk to patient health and safety.

The cost of redoing something is always higher. This refers not only to money, but also to patient outcomes, regulatory or legal sanctions and corporate reputation. One of the goals of compliance should be to establish systems that allow early, accurate detection of problems, before harm comes to patients or data integrity cannot be assured.

Cutting through systemic ‘noise’

But a clinical trial built on a foundation of scrupulous compliance with all applicable regulations, policies and standards will fare much better when unexpected problems arise. Compliant systems will have redundancies and failsafes built in to help weather any disasters that may befall a study.

One of the most important things good compliance systems provide is the ability to see when something isn’t right. If aberrant data is quickly visible, it can be addressed before serious risks to patient safety and data integrity develop.

For example, a device manufacturer that produces a stent on a limited, one-by-one basis will find it extraordinarily difficult to conduct that manufacturing within a quality system. In this sort of a system, QSR compliance and consistent manufacturing quality would be challenging. Such a company wouldn’t have anything to look back on within its compliance system to understand where the point of failure was when the inevitable problems cropped up; it would be difficult to determine if a device failure was due to an issue with the product itself or to problems in the manufacturing system.

A more systematic method of production, in compliance with the QSR, on the other hand, adds traceability into the design. And this helps clear out the extraneous noise so that any problems that occur are more likely to be completely separate from the systems.

And the ability to handle problems can be crucial during a clinical trial. For instance, many medical devices perform essential functions that affect a patient’s immediate health. If an investigational device fails, things can go south quickly and dramatically for patients. Even in areas like medical scanning or imaging, failures can mean inaccurate diagnoses and treatment paths for patients.

Under compliance systems like this, if something comes up that is wrong, it is very apparent. Without clear systems, it’s harder to see when something has gone wrong.

For example, systematic collection of data on the front end helps researchers to see aberrant or outlying data points quickly. When a problem originates in the investigational product itself, systematic deviations will appear within the compliant systems. In other words, any deviations in data can be assumed to be because of an issue with the product.

In this way, a focus on compliance can eliminate extraneous “noise” within the clinical trial system. When all the compliance underpinnings are in place, systems within the trial will work in a consistent, reliable manner. With these basics handled up-front, researchers and sponsors are then free to be more creative and more agile in responding to new challenges or needs.

Research staff must be trained to work within the established compliance systems, as well as to perform the study protocol correctly. Since different people learn in different ways, it’s important that training incorporate different senses. Simulation-based approaches, like that offered by Pro-ficiency, often do the best job of incorporating multiple learning styles while also allowing the opportunity to practice in a consequence-free environment.

Pro-ficiency’s protocol analysis and training approaches, for instance, help take the noise out of the system by helping research staff understand clearly what has to happen and how it has to happen.

In short, a focus on compliance from a systems approach means that researchers don’t have to think about every tiny step that is taken for every procedure or task required in a given protocol. They can, instead, focus on the central focus of the study, which must always be patient care and data quality and integrity.

Robin Newman

Robin Newman, MSN EdD CPNP, is the Global VP for Clinical Affairs at Beckman Coulter Diagnostics and Life Sciences. With a nursing education from the University of Texas at Austin and Arlington, she also holds a doctorate in Human & Organizational Learning and Development from The George Washington University. With over 25 years of experience, Dr. Newman has dedicated her career to developing healthcare solutions in the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries. Her extensive background includes leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson, the US Food & Drug Administration, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics, and as the Founder and CSO of MedTrials, a Dallas-based clinical research and regulatory consulting firm.

Brad Stefanovic, Clinical Operations and Innovation Leader, Joins Pro-ficiency

October 19, 2023/in Immersive Content, News, Press Releases/by Collin Brooks

DURHAM, N.C., October 19, 2023 – Pro-ficiency, a leading provider of simulation-based training solutions in life sciences, has appointed Brad Stefanovic to lead the organization’s clinical trial innovation efforts. As a former Clinical Operations leader, Stefanovic brings a unique perspective on challenges facing clinical study operations, including how Pro-ficiency can address those issues. In addition, as a former advocate of Pro-ficiency solutions, he can convey the power of simulation-based training solutions from his real-world experience.

“It’s unique to find a team member that has not only talked about the need for change in our profession, but has been active in driving change for years,” said Jenna Rouse, Chief Clinical Markets Officer. “His deep understanding of the challenges facing clinical study operations, combined with his passion for innovation, make him the ideal person to lead our efforts in helping clients to proactively manage risk and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their clinical trials.”

Brad Stefanovic brings over 17 years of experience in the clinical research industry to Pro-ficiency. He has held senior leadership positions at several leading pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations (CROs), where he has overseen all aspects of clinical trial design, execution, and management. Stefanovic is also a recognized expert in the use of simulation and modeling to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of clinical trials.

“We are delighted to welcome Brad to the Pro-ficiency team,” said Michael Raymer, CEO of Pro-ficiency. “Brad’s deep expertise spanning from clinical research through commercialization make him the ideal person to lead our efforts in bringing simulation-based training solutions to clients. We are confident that Brad will play a key role in driving client quality through his ability to bridge the gap between theory and practice.”

Stefanovic holds a PhD in Physiology from the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia and was Alumni of the year in 2022.

About Pro-ficiency

Pro-ficiency is a leading provider of simulation-based training and compliance solutions for clinical trials. The company provides a comprehensive suite of services, anchored by their innovation in customized, virtual training simulations, training and compliance monitoring tools, and real-time data & predictive analytics. Combined with protocol optimization, process visualization tools and professional production video capabilities, Pro-ficiency achieves improved intelligence for learners and critical risk intelligence for leaders. Learn more at pro-ficiency.com.

Contact:

Collin Brooks, Marketing Manager

collin.brooks@pro-ficiency.com, +1 919.909.0420