Over the past few years, there has been a significant increase in the number of medical research studies being commissioned. The focus of these studies varies widely from voice-of-the-patient to pharmaceutical positioning and branding. Successfully recruiting for such studies can be a challenge. Keeping up with medical abbreviations, consumer privacy issues, HIPPAA regulations, and other restrictions are just some of the reasons why it’s important to choose a recruiting firm that has a dedicated team of healthcare study recruiters.
What Makes A Good Healthcare Recruiter?
Healthcare recruiting teams spend more time building relationships with medical offices; doctors and nurses; and patient groups. Such relationships are key to successfully recruiting for healthcare studies. We’ve had market research firms contact us in a panic when they realize that recruiting for medical and healthcare studies are way more challenging than recruiting for general studies. Our healthcare recruiting teams have worked within the medical establishment and have long-established relationships with various groups and individuals within the industry.
A good healthcare recruiter engages with patients and consumers and is familiar with emerging trends, causes, and foundations that are active within their communities. Beyond engagement and relationship building, successful medical recruiting teams spend a lot of time reading medical journals and looking for possible links between medical conditions that can make recruitment easier.
Does it Take Longer to Recruit for Medical Studies?
Depending on the focus of the medical or healthcare study, recruiting may take longer. If recruiting requires going through a medical office or connecting with healthcare providers, the hours to make contact are limited. This is where relationship building pays off. Our recruiters know when it’s okay to outreach and are sensitive to the busy schedules of professionals. Given our experience recruiting for medical and healthcare studies, we can easily give a realistic timeline to the researcher. When partnering with market research firms, our healthcare recruitment team familiarizes itself with the scope of the study so we can collectively work on a timeline for recruitment.
Respondent Databases
Recruiting for any type of market research study usually starts with up-to-date respondent databases. Such databases can be segmented and organized so that recruiters can easily filter for the particular requirements of each study. Recruiting for medical studies requires specific tagging of data when inputting information into databases. Medical study recruitment will usually be a multi-pronged approach. Recruiters will first look for available, qualified participants in the database while also reaching out to professional networks.
Recruiting for medical and healthcare studies requires a skill set that goes beyond general market research recruiting. When it comes time to recruit for your next healthcare study, it’s best to partner with a nationwide recruiting agency that has demonstrated experience with medical recruiting.
