Best Practices For Delivering Investigator Training Via Virtual Meetings

Making a quick switch to virtual meetings? Everyone knows that running a virtual meeting is just a click away, send out that calendar invite with the meeting code and you’re done. Right?  Great thanks for reading.

Wait…

Let’s be realistic. We all understand the importance of starting a study off on the right foot and the consequences if you don’t.  With so many moving parts in a clinical trial, the devil really is in the details. Because all we have done over the past 15 years is support the delivery/documentation of investigator training, we’ve compiled a long list of lessons learned based upon trends, experience, and feedback from both sponsors and sites. Here’s just a few of the top tips we have cultivated over the years.

Top 5 Tips:

1. Limit to No More Than Two Hours

Have you ever sat in a meeting and thought this could have been an email? Or this could have been done in 10 minutes if we were not going in circles repeating the same thing. Covering repeat topics is bad enough, covering topics that could have been sent ahead of time is worse. We suggest a process to determine the absolute essential content for a virtual training. Any meeting over two hours is a real struggle on the attention span and we see the drop off metrics when going even a little over on time.

2. Backups on Backups 

“It worked in testing.” A phrase heard far too often when running a virtual training session for the first time. Our best practices always have backups on backups. We do not only have dedicated phone line backups to maintain communication, but also backup event production managers to ensure everything goes smoothly. Proper planning with event speakers and multiple rehearsals is a part of any strategy when running such a crucial event.

3. Knowledge Checks 

Are you paying attention? You’re not reading your email or chatting in the background, right? Intermittent checks on knowledge in order to maintain engagement with the audience is a great way to check audience attention. Simple questions delivered right to the attendees screen help not only retain information but give confidence that the audience is engaged.

4. Clear and Concise Agenda

Here’s everything we’re going to cover with you. There should not be any surprises when attendees join training. If you’ve done the proper pre-work and set expectations on which training should be conducted before the virtual session, you’ll have better compliance and engaged attendees.

5. Have an Attendance Record Plan 

Did everyone get the training? A key element often forgotten, how are we going to track compliance? Are we sure everyone has the proper training, who is missing? Having an attendance plan is crucial. All the work is done on making the training as smooth and successful as possible, you should have an auditable record for any regulatory agencies. Though we prefer our own automated InvestigatorSpace platform, there are ways this can be done manually with extra time and effort. Just make sure you have a plan!

Do you have any tips we’re missing or looking for help with your next virtual investigator training? Drop us a message.