Higher Site Attendance and Other Benefits of Virtual Investigator Meetings
The simplest and most effective way to measure ROI for a pharmaceutical Investigator Meeting is site attendance. While live meetings bring greater potential for peer to peer learning and more productive engagement between sponsors and site attendees, virtual investigator meetings come with some unique benefits of their own.
Cost Savings
Without the need for air travel, lodging, dining, and other expenses connected with an in-person investigator meeting, a full-service virtual meeting typically costs 10 to 50 percent less than a face-to face meeting.
Reduction of Lost Productivity for Sites & Sponsors
Since no travel time is involved, a virtual meeting can save attendees one to two workdays − a significant amount of time for busy staff members. With the ever-changing health care industry regulatory requirements regarding travel, attending virtual investigator meetings have proven to be a huge benefit for health care professionals. In the world of physicians, “time away from practice” is precious and costly. It is also closely monitored and documented. Since no travel is involved with virtual investigator meetings, they don’t lose productivity time outside of their practice.
Eliminate Angst of Being Away from Home
HCPs are busy people! When sponsor companies are vying for a portion of an HCPs schedule, it’s important to minimize schedule disruptions and maximize time at home and at work. Virtual meetings allow HCPs to have more time with their families and a greater sense of work-life balance.
Higher Site Attendance
Virtual meetings can generate attendance rates that are much higher than on-site meetings – often in the 90 to 100 percent range. Such attendance is usually most common when the meeting is supported by a comprehensive invitation campaign. Live Investigator Meetings garner between 40-60% of invitee registration. Also, virtual meetings tend to have a higher rate of attendance by primary investigators as opposed to secondary-level investigators. In-person meetings often limit attendance to two people per site whereas virtual meetings are open to everyone at the site that will be involved in the study.
While virtual meetings have drawbacks such as how to measure attentiveness, there are ways to navigate around these drawbacks and implement strategies such as live polling and chat boxes to keep sites engaged. Nothing can replace face to face engagement, however, in 2020 where health concerns from COVID-19 are at the forefront, it’s important to understand the benefits of executing virtual investigator meetings to keep studies, networking and education in forward motion.