Suzanne Harris is a veteran patient advocate and the Senior Vice President of Marketing & Communications at SubjectWell, where she spearheads initiatives to modernize the intersection of clinical research and patient engagement. With a deep focus on patient-centric solutions, she has become a leading voice in challenging sponsors and CROs to move beyond antiquated recruitment models that often overlook the very people they aim to help. Her work emphasizes bridging the gap between clinical innovation and the real-world journeys of individuals navigating complex health challenges, ensuring that research is both inclusive and representative of the global population.
In this conversation, we explore the shift from traditional site-based recruitment to digital-first strategies that prioritize the patient’s perspective. We discuss the high percentage of symptomatic individuals who remain invisible to formal healthcare databases, the economic efficiencies of optimized social media campaigns, and how digital tools can alleviate the administrative burdens placed on local research sites. Finally, we look at the role of digital outreach in achieving global diversity and the necessary steps to transition online searchers into informed clinical trial participants.
Many symptomatic individuals, such as those with chronic pain conditions, never receive a formal diagnosis or appear in specialty databases. How does bypassing traditional healthcare pathways change the makeup of a study population, and what specific clinical insights do researchers gain from these previously “invisible” participants?
By moving beyond the traditional healthcare “walls,” we finally begin to see a study population that reflects the true reality of a disease rather than just a subset of people with premium insurance or access to academic centers. Data from recent studies, such as the 2025 research by Roos et al., reveals a staggering reality where over 95% of participants with symptoms consistent with dysmenorrhea had never received a formal diagnosis. These individuals are often younger, more geographically diverse, or perhaps have had their symptoms dismissed by providers in the past, making them “invisible” to traditional site databases. When we bring these participants into a trial, researchers gain insights into the early, untreated stages of a condition and the real-world lived experience of those navigating fragmented care. This shift provides a much more robust data set that can lead to innovations that actually work for the general public, not just the small percentage of patients already captured in specialist networks.
Traditional offline recruitment often carries high costs per participant compared to optimized social media campaigns using video ads and tracking. What are the logistical trade-offs when shifting budgets toward digital methods, and how do you ensure the clinical validity of participants recruited through online channels?
The shift toward digital methods requires a move away from passive site-based reliance toward an active, data-driven marketing infrastructure that can be optimized in real-time. Research by Haas et al. in JMIR Mental Health indicates that optimized digital campaigns—leveraging video ads and pixel tracking—can reduce the cost per eligible participant by over 80%, making the process up to six times more cost-efficient than traditional methods. The trade-off is that you must be prepared to manage a much higher volume of initial inquiries, which necessitates sophisticated automated screening and pre-qualification tools to maintain quality. We ensure clinical validity by mirroring the rigor of a physical site visit within the digital screener, using validated health scales and structured questions to filter for participants who meet the exact protocol requirements. This ensures that while the “top of the funnel” is much wider and more cost-effective, the patients delivered to the research sites are highly qualified and ready for enrollment.
Patients often search for symptom validation in online forums long before they ever meet a specialist. How should recruitment messaging be designed to intercept these early-stage journeys, and what steps are necessary to transition a searching internet user into a fully qualified, informed trial participant?
Recruitment messaging must evolve from “Are you a candidate for this trial?” to “Are you experiencing these symptoms and looking for answers?” because most of these individuals are searching for validation rather than a specific clinical study. We intercept these journeys by using education-first messaging that acknowledges their pain or frustration, providing them with the vocabulary they might lack to describe their condition. To transition a searcher into a participant, we must build a bridge of trust through clear, transparent communication that explains the “why” behind the research and what their journey will look like. Over 90% of symptomatic individuals in some studies have either not sought care or felt their symptoms were unrecognized, so the digital pathway must offer a sense of empowerment and a clear, low-friction route to professional clinical evaluation.
Site-based models frequently struggle with narrow recruitment pools and heavy administrative burdens. How does integrating digital outreach help alleviate the pressure on local research staff, and what is the best way to coordinate between digital platforms and physical sites to ensure a seamless patient experience?
Digital outreach acts as a powerful force multiplier for site staff by handling the “heavy lifting” of finding, educating, and pre-screening patients before they ever step foot in a clinic. Instead of site coordinators spending hours cold-calling outdated databases or processing ineligible leads, digital platforms deliver a stream of pre-qualified, informed patients who have already consented to be contacted. The best way to coordinate this is through integrated technology that provides real-time visibility into the patient’s status, ensuring that when a digital lead is transferred, the site has all the relevant preliminary data ready. This seamless handoff reduces the administrative “noise” at the site level, allowing coordinators to focus on what they do best: providing high-quality clinical care and ensuring patient safety during the trial itself.
Increasing demands for trial diversity and global reach are making site-specific networks less sufficient. What practical hurdles do sponsors face when expanding recruitment beyond traditional academic centers, and how can digital tools be used to bridge language, geography, and socio-economic access barriers effectively?
Sponsors primarily face the “proximity bias” hurdle, where trials are unintentionally limited to those who live within driving distance of a few major urban research hubs. Digital tools allow us to shatter these geographic boundaries by targeting underrepresented zip codes and tailoring outreach in multiple languages to reach diverse ethnic and socio-economic groups. By starting where the patients are—on their smartphones and in their social communities—we can identify eligible participants in rural or underserved areas who would otherwise never hear about a trial. This approach directly addresses the inclusivity gap, ensuring that clinical research is not a luxury for the few, but an opportunity for all patients, regardless of their proximity to a major medical university.
What is your forecast for patient recruitment?
I forecast that the industry will move toward a “hybrid-first” recruitment standard where digital outreach is the primary engine for patient identification and site-based networks serve as the specialized hubs for clinical execution. We are moving away from the era where we wait for patients to find us in a doctor’s office, and instead, we are entering an era where we meet them at the very moment they begin to question their health online. The data clearly shows that digital methods are not just a backup plan; they are a faster, more cost-effective, and more inclusive way to build the future of medicine. Ultimately, the question will no longer be whether to use digital tools, but how quickly we can adapt our systems to handle the diverse, global, and highly informed patient populations that these tools are finally bringing to the table.
