2026 SCRS West Key Takeaways

Show Me The Money: KPIs That Prove Your Sites Worth

Most clinical research sites track some metrics — but few track the right ones in a way that demonstrates their value to sponsors and CROs. This session addressed that gap, giving sites a practical framework to measure, communicate, and improve performance across five dimensions.

The Five Questions Every Site’s KPIs Must Answer

– How fast can you start? Selection to activation, contract execution time, and FPFV from greenlight.

– How predictably can you deliver? Enrollment rate (patients/month, normalized), % of contracted goal, pace ratio, drop-out rate, and screen failure rate.

– How much rework will you create? Eligibility violations, major deviations, open major deviations (a distinct and ongoing risk signal), and query volume.

– How sustainable is your model? Overhead recovery %, revenue per study and per CRC, EBITDA margin, pipeline forecast and aging AR.

– How much can you scale? Staff utilization and capacity headroom.

The CRO Blindspot

CROs tend to over-index on enrollment speed, treat all sites as equal, and conduct reactive rather than proactive performance reviews. What gets underweighted: predictability, financial sustainability, site-differentiated benchmarks, and partnership quality. High-performing sites differentiate themselves by also measuring responsiveness, governance participation, and tech adoption — the soft KPIs increasingly used in CRO tiering models.

Key Takeaways

• Enrollment speed is necessary but not sufficient — predictability is what separates top-tier sites.
• Quality is not underrated – pay attention to ways to reduce major deviations and to address deviations promptly if they occur with a strong CAPA. Seek to understand information on data entry timelines, query volume and time to answer queries as this will be a strong indicator of quality risk and potential support/re-training that may be needed.
• Financial KPIs are often the last to be formalized — and the most important to understand long term growth and financial health. Consider experts/contractors in this space to put clear processes and systems in place to track/invoice and reconcile on a regular basis.
• You cannot improve what you do not measure. Know your baseline and put plans in place to focus on the key areas of importance that will prove your sites worth!

Access the KPIs handout here. 

Karri Venn
VP Site Advocacy & Mentorship, SCRS

Site Training Trimmed: Cut 25 Results

Training has become one of the most significant operational burdens in clinical research — and the industry knows it. This session brought together a sponsor, site, and vendor to examine the SCRS Cut >25 initiative: a call to reduce site training burden by at least 25%. The conversation moved quickly from problem identification to practical, role-specific strategies for change.

Key Takeaways

The core problem is that training has drifted from competency-building to documentation-generation — and everyone feels the cost. SCRS survey data found that 43% of respondents report 26–50% of their training is redundant, with EDC systems, safety portals, and IRT platforms as the top offenders. The highest-leverage fix available right now is deceptively simple: consistently distinguishing between what is required training and what is merely a resource. A risk-based approach to training — mirroring the logic already applied to monitoring — is both achievable and overdue.

What Sites, Sponsors, and Vendors Can Do

Sponsors should centralize training records across trials, require training based on actual role and delegation log — not blanket curricula — and designate a named contact for training escalations. Novo Nordisk’s experience is instructive: restructuring training around the delegation log produced reductions of 40–60% in startup training time. Sites should maintain a centralized training file for each team member, proactively present prior certifications at feasibility or pre-SIV, and push back on requirements that are informational rather than procedural. Vendors should follow Scout’s lead — eliminating re-certification requirements for sites already active on a platform and providing sponsors with usage data that makes accepting prior training easy and defensible.

The Bottom Line

The energy in this session made clear that sponsors, sites, and vendors are all ready to move. What’s needed now is coordinated action. SCRS will re-survey the industry in mid-2026 to measure progress against the Cut >25 baseline. The question worth carrying forward: “We do risk-based monitoring. Why aren’t we doing risk-based training?”

Michelle Hartmann
Director/Owner, South Broward Research

The Human Advantage In Innovation

Clinical research is rapidly becoming more digital, decentralized, and AI-assisted — but the factors that determine whether a study succeeds remain deeply human. The future differentiator will not be who has the most sophisticated technology, but who uses technology to create a better experience for patients, investigators, and sponsors. The sites and networks that win will be the ones that make research feel more human while using technology to make execution easier.

Key Takeaways

Technology creates efficiency, but humans create participation. You can automate feasibility, recruitment, startup, and data processes — but you cannot automate patient trust, investigator credibility, or community relationships. AI should remove administrative burden, not clinical thinking. And while technology can scale trials, it is trust that enrolls patients. Activation speed is not the same as site performance.

What Sites Can Do

Protect patient-facing time by automating scheduling reminders and pre-screening workflows, then measure the payoff through retention rates and patient satisfaction. Make the patient experience a formal KPI — add time-to-first-contact, retention, and referral rates alongside the enrollment and revenue metrics you already track. When adopting AI tools, use them for recruiting analytics, contract review, and forecasting — but not as a replacement for investigator oversight or meaningful human interaction.

Wes Bonner
VP Strategic Relationships 

Change Champions: Building Tech Buy-In

Technology is evolving faster than most organizations can comfortably absorb, and clinical research sites are no exception. For many staff, change feels unsettling — and without strong internal support, even the best technology initiatives are likely to fall short. This session focused on how to build the internal momentum needed to make new technology actually stick.

Key Takeaways

Adoption doesn’t happen by accident — it requires clear processes, visible leadership support, and the right people leading the charge. A Change Champion is essential: someone who understands the technology, believes in it, can demonstrate real results, and has credibility with their colleagues. Equally important is leading with WIIFM — “What’s In It For Me” — because addressing staff benefit upfront removes resistance before it builds. And adoption without measurement is just hope; tracking progress is what turns implementation into integration.

What Sites Can Do

Start by acknowledging that staff resistance is often rooted in real past experiences — difficult trainings, failed rollouts, or tools that created more work than they solved. That context matters. Identify and train your Change Champion before go-live, not after. Convert new technology workflows into SOPs so the process becomes standard, not optional. At launch, run live demos, actively gather user feedback, and ensure admin-level users are fully trained in parallel with the rollout.

The Bottom Line

Successful technology implementation rarely happens in isolation — it requires buy-in from sites, CROs, sponsors, and vendors together. The organizations that get this right treat adoption as a people strategy first and a technology strategy second.

Susan Baumohl
Director of Business Development & Strategic Marketing, AMR Clinical

Patient- Centric Protocols: Finding The Friction Early

Too often, participant burden isn’t identified until patients are already dropping out. This session focused on a more proactive approach — evaluating studies from the patient’s perspective before enrollment begins, so that visit schedules, travel demands, and technology requirements can be assessed and flagged early. Sites that do this well don’t just execute protocols; they help shape them.

Key Takeaways

Protocol dry runs are one of the most underutilized tools in site operations. Walking through each study visit and procedure from start to finish — before a single patient is enrolled — surfaces operational and burden-related issues that a standard protocol review simply won’t catch. The same applies to patient-facing technology: ePROs, mobile apps, and wearables should be tested by site staff before go-live, not by patients during enrollment. Critically, participant burden is not one-size-fits-all — what’s manageable for a rare disease patient may be completely unrealistic for a working adult, elderly patient, or pediatric participant. Sites that understand their specific population’s needs are far better positioned to identify barriers early and provide sponsors with feedback that actually improves the study.

What Sites Can Do

Build a standardized burden assessment checklist into every feasibility review — covering visit frequency, duration, travel requirements, and technology use. Run internal protocol dry runs with coordinators, investigators, and operational staff before startup. Test all patient-facing technologies internally and document usability issues before patients encounter them. Most importantly, develop a formal process for communicating findings back to sponsors with practical, specific recommendations — and continue collecting participant feedback throughout the study to inform future assessments.

The Bottom Line

Many of the recruitment, retention, and compliance challenges sites face throughout a study are predictable — if enough attention is paid to the participant experience during feasibility and startup. As sponsors increasingly seek site input earlier in protocol development, sites that proactively document burden and bring data-driven recommendations to the table will be the ones shaping better studies and delivering stronger results.

Nicole Stiff
Business Development Manager, Revival Research Institute