What Should I Use if My Coordinators Are Overwhelmed?

An overwhelmed coordinator is not a motivation problem or a training problem. It is arithmetic. There are more tasks than hours, and the tasks that get dropped are the ones with no immediate deadline, which is almost always recruitment follow-up.

That has a specific consequence: the referrals you paid for sit unworked while the coordinator runs the visits that are already on the calendar.

Coordinator time splits roughly into work only they can do and work anyone competent and trained can do.

Only they can do it: conducting visits, consent, protocol procedures, source documentation, investigator communication, monitoring visits, adverse event handling.

Someone else can do it: calling back interested patients, repeated contact attempts, protocol pre-screening questions, appointment scheduling, reminder calls, rescheduling no-shows, chasing records, answering the same twelve study questions from prospective participants.

The second list is where nearly all recruitment work lives, and it is the list that can be moved off the site.

Outsourced pre-screening and scheduling A partner works the referrals end to end and returns patients who are already screened against the protocol with a visit on the calendar. The coordinator's involvement drops to running the visit. This is the biggest single reduction available, which is why it is the model we operate.

Shared or floating coordinator support Part-time staff across studies. Helps, but it is still hiring, still training, still turnover.

Automated reminders and confirmations Cheap and worth doing regardless. Reduces no-shows and removes a repetitive task. Does not solve the calling problem.

Fewer, better referrals Sometimes the fix is subtraction. A hundred unqualified referrals cost more coordinator hours than twenty qualified ones and produce fewer enrollments.

New software. Another system to log into is another task, unless it removes an existing one. More lead volume. If the bottleneck is calling capacity, volume makes the backlog visible rather than smaller. Asking for prioritization. Coordinators are already prioritizing. That is why follow-up is what slipped.

Count it. Take one month of referrals, estimate twenty-five minutes of contact and screening work each including callbacks, and convert to hours. Most sites are surprised by the total, and the number makes the conversation about capacity rather than effort.

Will referrals arrive already screened against our protocol? Do you book the appointment, or do we? How many contact attempts before you stop? What do you need from us each week? Can we listen to a recorded call?

If the answers add work back to the site, keep looking.

Sites can contact our team about referral support, or list capabilities on TrialMatch to be matched with sponsors running studies in your therapeutic areas.