The following article appeared on ClinPage.com on April 1, 2010
Five years ago, when Christine Pierre attempted to bring together clinical investigators and other site leaders to casually discuss their best practices, it didn't go as she'd hoped. She sent out 1,000 invitations. Representatives from ten sites showed up. "In all honesty, it was a huge failure," says Pierre, president of Baltimore area-based RxTrials, a 16-year-old site network.
And yet, the handful of site leaders met anyway for a weekend in Santa Fe dubbed the Site Solutions Summit, and dug in on annoying issues that are universal to sites, casting about for remedies. Then they went home.
But that gathering was not a failure after all. Word of the meeting spread. Other site owners, directors and investigators got jazzed about what Pierre was trying to accomplish. The Association of Clinical Research Organizations (ACRO) even contacted Pierre and said it wanted to be involved. more...