Global protocol alignment series

A new clinical study protocol had to be understood — not merely circulated — by investigators in 32 countries. The default option was a single large investigator meeting: a day of presentations, high attendance, and no way of knowing which sites had grasped the parts that most often go wrong.

The sponsor also had the problem every global investigator meeting has. One event cannot be scheduled at a reasonable hour for every time zone, and the sites that dial in at three in the morning are not the ones who ask the questions.

We designed the series as two connected layers rather than one event. An on-demand layer carried the study materials and the training, available before and after in whatever time zone the site was in. A live layer ran hybrid sessions where the value was genuinely live: the questions, the edge cases, the things an investigator only raises when they hear another site raise them first.

Surveys and polls ran across both layers, which is what turned the series into a measurement as well as a meeting. We could see which protocol sections generated hesitation and which sites had not engaged, and put a session in front of them specifically — rather than repeating the whole meeting for everyone.

930 investigators and study team members across 32 countries worked through 255 discrete activities across the series. Engagement and knowledge assessment were captured in both formats, so the study team finished the series with a view of which sites were aligned on the protocol and which needed another conversation — before the first patient was enrolled rather than after the first deviation.