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Sponsors and clinical research sites wish to continue conduct of research so long as patients are adequately protected and willing to participate. Without patients, there are no trials. Block Clinical’s response to COVID-19 aims to help our Clients address the concerns of patients so they feel safe participating. 

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The underlying concepts of a Strategic Patient Logistics Program (SPLP) are based on a tried-and-true approach that has been applied for over a decade in the meetings and events industry and has proved to be a win for Companies who have gone through the efforts to create and implement.
Applying these concepts to improve Patient care makes too much sense. SPLP can be defined as a disciplined approach to managing company-wide clinical trials and study-related processes, activities, metrics, standards, and supplier strategies to achieve business objectives, quantitative cost savings, risk mitigation and optimal service levels. BCI offers companies and organizations a platform from which to implement and manage an SPLP while offering those who support Patients an efficient way to do so. Join the conversation, send a message to splp@blockclinical.com to get involved in this industry initiative.
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Through the use of our stand-alone or integrated platform, BCI helps organizations implement a Strategic Patient Logistics Program (SPLP) by automating:

  • Patient logistics policies, scope-of-service, and budget parameters.
  • Customized workflows and notifications to heighten visibility into patient activities.
  • Logistics Supplier management and booking processes.
  • Administration of travel and spend policies.
  • Study financial oversight including real-time spend and transaction reporting.
  • Single study, multi-study, and SPLP-centric reporting and analytics.

Streamline the patient visit process with workflow and policy management, send real time bid requests and make educated purchasing decisions across the BCI Supplier network. Create reports on all aspects of your logistics program, share key study metrics across departments, evaluate study ROI, and measure metrics such as recruitment, retention, on-time visits and more.

The most effective way to better manage your patient logistics spend is to understand your patient and staff activity and related expenditures, and then implement steps to control and/or leverage that spend. The first step is often creating a study travel policy during the Study registration process that creates guard rails and protects your overall study budget. This allows you to track expenses across multiple categories, sub-categories, suppliers, and logistics categories. Budget and payment data can be captured at customer-defined intervals beginning with the initial estimates through the reconciliation of actual study visit expenditures. Leveraging spend with high volume fulfillment suppliers allow companies to create further savings.

BCI’s highly customizable reporting tool provides spend and savings analysis across and single study or an enterprise. Data can also be compared by study type, region, site, or other custom-defined criteria to identify additional opportunities. Leverage historical bid and budget information to create sounds Study budgets that are far more accurate. Or, from an enterprise perspective, leverage your organization’s total patient/trial spend in combination with corporate travel spend for deeper discounts and better rates with preferred suppliers.

The top three reasons to implement a Strategic Patient Logistics Program are:

  1. To improve financial transparency and logistics visibility across your clinical trials
  2. To achieve cost savings
  3. To minimize risk associated with delivery of patient logistics

Risk mitigation can vary from the risk of negative patient experiences and undue burdens leading to dropouts to an organization’s financial liabilities as a result of a lack of transactional transparency and/or invoice validation.  Risks associated with patient PII, safety, security and heightened exposure to financial risk are other factors to consider. A well-executed SPLP can greatly reduce these risk factors.

Think of technology as the foundation or framework upon which a successful SPLP is supported. BCI integrates with enterprise clinical trial management systems, and patient engagement “apps” to provide many essential solutions including:

  • A centralized patient and site registration database to capture vital logistical data
  • A reporting engine to run analytics on captured trial data, spend and savings
  • Budgeting and reconciliation solutions
  • Centralized patient logistics booking and payment management
  • Direct integrations with patient logistics suppliers
  • Patient travel policy, workflow and approval automation
  • Automated communications, campaigns and surveys
  • Unparalleled financial oversight of patient spend with “fund as you go” cash management

Because no two Strategic Patient Logistics Programs are the same, it is difficult to offer a standard answer as to the duration of an implementation. The short answer is that implementations can take weeks, to months, to years, but the factors that influence whether a program will take more or less time are numerous.

The following are a few of the most common factors to consider when estimating timing:

  • Existence of a program champion and backing of executives
  • Ability to effectively implement Policies
  • Current organizational structure for patient logistics management – centralized or decentralized
  • Ability of current enterprise technologies to play well with other
  • Program scope – domestic or global

A custom-built system often creates a stovepipe scenario where not all systems in play can efficiently share data and functionality, and generally leads to significant up-front investment vs. purchasing an off-the-shelf and “agnostic” type of solution. While proprietary systems can be designed specifically for the end-user, the ability to keep pace with rapidly changing business requirements make ongoing maintenance of such systems difficult and costly.

Block Clinical is committed to the ongoing refinement of its Platform as demonstrated by its ongoing user directed product enhancements,  and integrations with other industry leading technologies.

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