Brought to you in partnership with Reveles Clinical Services
We’ve traditionally asked a lot of patients who participate in clinical trials. We ask them to travel for treatment and evaluation — often long distances. Many times they need to do it frequently. We give them lists of rules they must abide by and protocols they must observe. There’s inconvenience, stress, and strain, for the patients themselves as well as family members and friends.
To move science and medicine forward, we need people to volunteer for this. Thousands of people.
Many will do it in hope of a cure or a little extra time or a little less pain. Some will do it because they want to help science and medicine advance. Others hope to help alleviate the pain and suffering of others. Whatever it is that motivates these people, there is no guarantee that they’ll achieve it.
Is there more we could do for them, the patients, and would-be patients? Could we make clinical trial participation less burdensome? Yes, we could. And if we do it, clinical research will gain access to more patients, including more of those from underrepresented populations.
What might we do to make clinical trials more patient-centric, more diverse, more efficient, and more likely to succeed?
The answer is featured on the home page of the Reveles website: We can bring hope closer to home.
We could remove or reduce the burden of travel for patients. We could eliminate the stress and inconvenience inherent in spending time in hospitals and clinics. We could lessen the time commitment required. We could engage clinical trial participants in the comfort and safety of their own homes.
Providing for clinical trial participation from people’s homes would also allow us to engage more people. The majority of the world’s population has long been excluded from clinical research solely because of where they live. Research has shown that 70% of potential participants in the U.S. live more than two hours away from the nearest study center, a distance that many would consider a barrier.
There are many challenges to be met in science, medicine, and clinical research, but the problem of the location should be far down the list given the technologies at our fingertips today.
Hope should live at home as much as anywhere else. We believe clinical research can thrive there, too. When that happens, we will all benefit.
R’Kes Starling, RPh, MBA
Founder & CEO
Reveles Clinical Services