Medical and healthcare studies are intertwined with pharmaceutical developments, whether it’s testing how a new or existing medicine is working; testing for side-effects; or learning about broader health implications and lifestyles. Additionally, there are more studies that focus on areas of mental health. If you do a quick internet search for scholarly articles that address recruiting for medical or healthcare studies, you’ll quickly learn that this is one of the more challenging aspects of conducting such studies.
While there are many outstanding nationwide market research recruiting agencies that can help with recruiting for consumer studies, not every recruitment firm can manage recruiting for medical studies or healthcare. There are many additional factors that come into play when recruiting for health studies, such as privacy, access to the necessary populations, HIPPA regulations, ethical considerations, and familiarity with the medical industry.
Medical and healthcare studies are often very niche and specific in their focus, which can make recruiting more challenging. Recruiters will work closely with the researcher conducting the study to develop a robust screening guide. Screening guides are always useful tools for
recruitment, but even more so for healthcare studies. A well-planned screener not only helps ensure that the appropriate people are targeted, but provides a starting point for the recruiter to begin outreach to potential participants.
Given the delicacy of the subject matter of some health-related studies, it may be difficult accessing some of these populations without permission to access closed and secured online groups. There are a lot of firewalls between medically-related online forums and the general population and knowing how to access such forums takes extra skill and patience.
When looking to fill a medically-related study, here are three questions to ask the recruiting firm:
1. What is your experience in healthcare or medical recruitment? If the agency can’t provide an extensive list of past medically-related recruiting efforts, then you should keep searching.
2. Do you have a dedicated recruiting team that has a proven background in the healthcare and medical industries? If the recruiting agency doesn’t have an internal team that is familiar with the additional requirements for health and medical recruitment, consider a
different agency.3. What internal privacy policies are in place when recruiting for sensitive topics? If the recruiting agency can’t quickly direct you to a privacy-policy page or produce documents that show how data is managed and if it’s compliant with the various regulations surrounding medically-related studies, you need to keep searching.
By teaming up with a qualified recruiting agency that is experienced with healthcare recruitment, you’ll keep your project on track and on budget.
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