HERSHEY, Pa. — Upgrades to Penn State’s clinical research database now make it easier for faculty to connect with participants for their research studies. StudyFinder, the University’s clinical research study database, now allows research participants to create a personalized profile, and receive communications about available research studies that match their submitted medical conditions or demographics.
“These enhancements will help study teams more quickly and easily connect with both potential healthy volunteers or participants with certain medical conditions,” said Dr. Neal Thomas, associate dean for clinical research at Penn State College of Medicine. “Participating in clinical research gives participants a way to be a part of tomorrow's health care breakthroughs.”
Potential study participants can login through a secure portal to register their potential interest in participating in research studies. They then select the types of studies they may be interested in by health topic/condition. Users can also register as healthy volunteers and be added to a list of potential participants who are interested in participating as healthy volunteers for studies. Create a profile here.
“Penn State research teams will benefit from the added functionality by engaging with registered users who have noted they are interested in studies on specific topics,” Thomas said. “This will help researchers and physicians recruit participants for their studies.”
“Nationally, the majority of clinical trials do not reach their goal recruitment within the expected time frame,” said Dr. Jennifer Kraschnewski, director of Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI). “This requires creative approaches to engaging research participants. I’m grateful for CTSI’s partnership with the Cancer Institute to develop this effective volunteer repository to better support Penn State researchers in addressing these recruitment challenges. We look forward to developing more innovative solutions to support the University’s clinical and translational research.”
Penn State researchers interested in learning more about utilizing this new resource for research recruitment, please email ctsi@pennstatehealth.psu.edu.