Research scientists and clinical trial managers can take advantage of the technologies that doctors are using in telemedicine to access patients at home. Shipping remote specimen collection kits out to study subjects at home, and connecting with them through telephone calls, video chats, digital enrollment portals, and online updates, will help your remote studies and virtual trials succeed.
The COVID-19 Pandemic and associated lockdowns forced the science and medical communities to pivot to remote research models. Thanks to the Internet and other technologies available today, this remote approach was largely successful. Instead of asking their patients and study subjects to travel to and from the clinic or trial site for their lab tests and follow-up appointments, providers sent the “lab” to them.
Practitioners monitoring post-transplant kids collected the necessary blood samples from them by mailing specimen collection kits out to their homes. Family members used the provided instructions & video demos to assist their children in collecting their own specimen samples. Once collected, samples were safely sealed into specimen bags and special envelopes for mailing to the designated lab for analysis. This remote approach produced reliable data that researchers and practitioners used to make critical decisions. Referencing that data, providers also conducted follow-up appointments via video, email and phone.
Researchers and physicians working with pediatric populations across great distances can use an array of remote technologies to share documents and communicate in real time with colleagues, study participants or patients, while also accessing important data. Now doctors in Mozambique can reach out to their colleagues in Chicago and discuss cases. Telehealth technologies, when paired with remote specimen collection, allow them to monitor individuals, discuss lab and serology reports, adjust dosing in medication, and more. They can evaluate sick children at a remote school or a distant clinic or gather specimen samples at a field site in an underdeveloped country.
In conjunction with increasingly sophisticated telemedicine approaches, remote pediatric blood collection is helping to make research and healthcare available to more people around the globe. Microsampling technology that is based on dried specimen collection versus liquid sample collection is easier in remote areas because no refrigeration or freezer transport and storage are necessary.
For example, very small samples of blood can be collected from a quick and easy fingerstick using a portable Mitra® device. A precise volume of blood is rapidly absorbed on the device’s VAMS® tip. This sample will dry on the tip during shipment via regular post. Unlike the sample contamination risks posed by dried blood spot (DBS) cards during shipment, Mitra microsamples are protected within the device’s plastic outer cartridge.
With portable and easy-to-use Mitra devices, no professional phlebotomist is required to conduct a venipuncture blood draw to collect wet blood samples in tubes. By following simple instructions, research personnel or study subjects can easily collect Mitra samples at home or in low-resource locations for low-cost mailing to a central lab.
The fingerstick microsampling technique is also much less stressful for children, especially if it can be performed in the comfort of home or other familiar surroundings with a parent or other family member to help.
Remote technologies and remote specimen collection using dried samples can be applied in many situations and environments: