BehavioralPulse™: Accelerating Pediatric Vaccine Trial Recruitment

Product: BehavorialPulse^TM

Industry & Function: Life Sciences - Clinical Trials

Therapeutic Area: Respiratory Vaccines

Summary

A clinical-stage biotech company was experiencing severe recruitment delays in a pediatric vaccine trial. Surgo integrated its proprietary data platform BehavioralPulse into the sponsor’s trial data, uncovering the specific recruitment barriers faced by underperforming sites. Site-specific action plans informed by BehavioralPulse led to increased weekly enrollment rates across all sites. The trial met enrollment goals ahead of schedule.

What Traditional Trial Metrics Miss, and Why It Matters for Clinical Trials

Clinical trial teams closely monitor site activation, enrollment rates, and recruitment progress to identify underperforming sites. While these metrics reveal where recruitment is falling behind, they rarely explain the patient and site-level barriers driving those outcomes. By enriching trial operations with behavioral data, BehavioralPulse helps organizations:

• Identify the underlying barriers limiting recruitment at each site
• Tailor recruitment strategies to the needs of local patient populations
• Equip clinical operations teams with targeted site engagement plans
• Improve enrollment performance without expanding the site footprint
• Accelerate recruitment timelines and reduce the risk of costly delays

BehavioralPulse complements traditional trial metrics with behavioral data that explains why recruitment challenges occur, enabling sponsors to take targeted actions that improve site performance and accelerate enrollment.

Challenge 

The sponsor was on track to miss its goal of recruiting 70% of patients by end-of-year. 59% of activated sites were underperforming against enrollment targets, and enrollment had fallen 30% behind the weekly recruitment goal.

Approach 

Surgo developed catchment-area profiles for each site, identifying prevalent patient characteristics across 50+ trial-relevant features from BehavioralPulse, including:

• Vaccine hesitancy
• Trust in pharma
• Health literacy
• Language barriers
• Transportation access
• Financial barriers

Surgo also developed a questionnaire to collect perspectives from site staff on recruitment activities and challenges. Surgo's analysis found that vaccine hesitancy was not the primary driver of underperformance across most sites.Instead, sites with low recruitment were more likely to be serving families with financial and transportation barriers, or with low health literacy.

The insights identified by Surgo were operationalized across the trial. The sponsor received profiles for each site, highlighting both patient-side and staff-side barriers to address. Surgo provided call scripts for the clinical operations team to use in conversation with managers at underperforming sites, with guidance tailored to each site’s barriers. Specific safety misconceptions identified by Surgo also informed updates to patient-facing recruitment materials.

Results 

Following implementation of Surgo's site-specific recommendations, weekly enrollment increased by an average of 11% across all sites. The greatest gains were observed among previously underperforming sites, with eight of the ten most improved sites having fallen below enrollment targets before the intervention. By addressing site-specific patient and operational barriers, the sponsor achieved its end-of-year goal of enrolling 70% of patients and reached its primary enrollment endpoint eight weeks ahead of schedule.

See How BehavioralPulse Turns Recruitment Challenges Into Opportunities

Go beyond recruitment metrics with behavioral data that uncovers enrollment barriers and enables targeted actions to improve site performance.

Talk to an expert about applying BehavioralPulse to your next clinical trial.