Recruitment Toolkit

Feasibility
A feasibility assessment is a crucial first step when developing a recruitment plan. The assessment will provide realistic recruitment goal estimates and aid in protocol development.  The “Recruitment Feasibility Worksheet” in the Toolkit provides checklists of benefits, strategies and tactics to consider in developing a recruitment plan.

Preparatory to Research
ResearchMatch is a Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) initiative funded by the National Institutes of Health. To request access as a researcher in order to determine possible study cohorts already signed up with Research Match please submit a Researcher Interest Form. Your request will be routed to our institutional liaison who will review and process your request.

Biostatistical Consulting Service – Investigators are strongly encouraged to consult with Biostatistics at the very beginning of their project.  The consulting service provides assistance with sample size and power calculations, data analysis and study design in addition to other data and statistical questions.

See also: Public Data Sources below

Both MCW and Froedtert hospital have policies specific to advertising, recruitment and non-English speaking research participants.

Medical College of Wisconsin

• MCW recruitment methods and compensation
  Learn about all current MCW IRB policies and procedures for investigators and project teams.
• MCW Translator Declaration form & MCW Back Translation Declaration Form
• MCW Research Language Services Core | CTSI of Southeast Wisconsin

Froedtert Hospital
Froedtert Hospital Language Services policy
Any questions regarding this policy contact OCRICC at ocricc@froedterthealth.org

Strategies
A well-conceived strategy is the key to maximizing trial recruitment. It should be developed early to help plan your budget and protocol accordingly. The Institutional Review Board (IRB) must approve a recruitment strategy.  The “Recruitment Strategy and Budget planning worksheet” in the Toolkit provides a list of recruitment methods along with workbook for budget development

Advertising
Advertising strategies accompanied with careful budget planning will help investigators reach potential participants for their study.  The Institutional Review Board (IRB) must approve any advertising prior to posting. The “MCW IRB_Recruitment Flyer Template” and the “Study Ad with Tear off Contact Information” in the Toolkit provide editable advertising templates.

Communications and Media Contacts
If researchers are looking to reach a large audience, working with both MCW Communications and local newspapers, radio and TV stations may be necessary. The Milwaukee Association of Commerce provides a list of contact information for local newspapers, radio and TV stations. In addition, the working in parallel with the MCW Communication office is necessary. A study recruitment media campaign requires approval by both the IRB AND the MCW Communication Office. Also note to MCW purchasing must be contacted prior to any purchasing transaction.

MCW Communications Resource Center
The MCW External Relations team welcomes all inquiries/requests.

Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce
Local newspapers, wire services, magazines, radio stations, tv stations and weekly newspaper contact information.

Maximizing Recruitment
ResearchMatch is designed to connect researchers who are looking for study participants to those who have already expressed interest in being a study participant. You may read the ResearchMatch FAQs for researchers.

Local Community/Advocacy Groups
Local patient community advocacy and support groups are displayed below. Please contact them directly for further information on how they can work with you on promoting your study.

Wisconsin Ovarian Cancer Alliance
The Wisconsin Ovarian Cancer Alliance is committed to providing Education, Support, and Funding of Research for Ovarian Cancer throughout Wisconsin.

Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition
The Wisconsin Breast Cancer Coalition (WBCC) is an alliance of individuals and organizations committed to halting the alarming incidence of breast cancer in Wisconsin. Our mission is to bring Wisconsin voices together to stand up and speak out about breast cancer through Legislation, Education and Collaboration.

American Diabetes Association
Dedicated to advancing diabetes research funding to help bring effective new treatments, and, eventually, a cure

Wisconsin Parkinson Association
Providing hope, community, support, and resources for people with Parkinson’s and their loved ones.

Alzheimer’s Association of Southeastern Wisconsin
Serving the state of Wisconsin, the Alzheimer's Association provides reliable information and care consultations; educational opportunities; funding for dementia research; and advocacy efforts for public policy changes across the state.

ALS Association – Wisconsin
We work with the world's best ALS physicians and clinics to make sure people living with ALS have access to the best specialized care no matter where they live.

American Cancer Society – Wisconsin Chapter
From our local fundraising events to our cancer support programs, you’ll find everything you need to fuel the fight against cancer and get patient support – right here in our community.

Huntington’s Disease Society of America – Wisconsin Chapter
The Huntington's Disease Society of America (HDSA) is the premier nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of everyone affected by Huntington's disease.

Stroke Support and Education
The Froedtert Acute Stroke Team is ready 24 hours a day to respond to the acute needs of stroke patients.

Gynecologic Cancer Patient Support and Education
The staff in the Gynecologic Cancer Program works hard to ensure that patients and families have all the information they need, when they need it.

Lupus Foundation of America – Wisconsin Chapter
Our comprehensive approach goes beyond research grants to focus on three critical goals: identify the causes of lupus, discover better ways to control symptoms, and ultimately find pathways to a cure.

Arthritis Foundation – Wisconsin
Join our community of champions to help those with arthritis live their best life.

American Brain Tumor Association – Froedtert & the Medical College of WI
We’re here to help you better understand brain tumor types, treatments, and care.

American Heart Association of Southeast Wisconsin
Our mission is to be a relentless force for a world of longer, healthier lives. As we move into the second century of our work, we are advancing health and hope for everyone, everywhere.

National Alliance on Mental Illness – Greater Milwaukee
The families and members of NAMI Wisconsin are here to help! We offer understanding to anyone concerned about mental illnesses and the treatment of mental illness.

American Lung Association – Wisconsin
Founded 120 years ago, the American Lung Association is the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease, through research, education and advocacy.

Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation – Wisconsin
We provide the state of Wisconsin with education programs, support groups, and events that raise crucial funding for research and patient programs that support those living with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). 

Other information to help maximize recruitment:

Rare disease patient recruitment and retention
Learn about technologies or methods that can be incorporated in patient recruitment that will provide successful rare disease patient enrollment and retention.

Patient recruitment and retention 101
How to Thrive in Today's Patient Recruitment Landscape

Recruiting Diverse Smokers: Enrollment Yields and Cost
To help tobacco control research better include vulnerable populations, we sought to identify effective ways to recruit diverse smokers.

The Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation
CISCRP (The Center for Information and Study on Clinical Research Participation) helps professionals better understand the study volunteer with facts and figures based on polls and surveys and other resources. These charts include information about before, during, and after participation as well as general information.

View CISRP Charts and Statistics

Trial Innovation Network
The Trial Innovation Network is a collaborative initiative within the CTSA Program composed of three key organizational partners – the CTSA Program Hubs, the Trial Innovation Centers (TICs), and the Recruitment Innovation Center (RIC). Other important partners include NIH Institutes, other federal and non-federal stakeholders, researchers, patients, providers, and the public.   The Recruitment and Retention Toolkit consists of submissions from CTSA hubs and other community health partners.

View the Recruitment & Retention Toolbox

University of Rochester Medical Center CTSI
This presentation from the University of Rochester Medical Center’s CTSI discusses many principles of recruitment for clinical research.

View the Presentation (PDF)

HCUPnet
HCUPnet is a free, online query system based on data from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP). It provides access to health statistics and information on hospital inpatient and emergency department utilization.

MEPSnet
Medical Expenditure Survey Panel, MEPSnet/HC gives you easy access to nationally representative statistics of health care use, expenditures, sources of payment, and insurance coverage for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population. With MEPSnet/HC you can generate statistics using Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS) Household Component public use files.

Wisconsin Department of Health Services
Protecting and promoting the health and safety of the people of Wisconsin.

Kaiser Family Foundation State Health Facts
The Kaiser Foundation focuses on major health care issues facing the nation, as well as U.S. role in global health policy. The Foundation is a “non-partisan source of facts and analysis for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the general public

AHRQ State Snapshots
The State Snapshots provide State-specific health care quality information, including strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. The goal is to help State officials and their public- and private-sector partners better understand health care quality and disparities in their State.

CDC – National Center for Health Statistics
The NCHS is the nation’s principal health statistics agency, NCHS leads the way with accurate, relevant, and timely data.

U. S. Bureau of the Census
Interactive Internet Data Tools available to explore United States Census data

Health Data.gov
This site contains over 800 datasets and is dedicated to making high value health data more accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers, and policy makers in the hopes of better health outcomes for all.

Health Services Research Information Central (HSRIC)
HSRIC is a research portal of health services research resources produced in conjunction with the National Library of Medicine. It provide numerous Internet links to data, funding announcements, reports, podcasts, discussion groups, and more.

SEER
The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program of the National Cancer Institute provides information on cancer statistics in an effort to reduce the cancer burden among the U.S. population.

GenBank 
GenBank ® is the NIH genetic sequence database, an annotated collection of all publicly available DNA sequences which comprises the DNA DataBank of Japan (DDBJ), the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), and GenBank at NCBI

World Health Organization: Global Health Observatory
WHO’s gateway to health-related statistics from around the world. The aim of the GHO portal is to provide easy access to country data and statistics with a focus on comparable estimates, and WHO’s analyses to monitor global, regional and country situation and trends.

The Human Mortality Database
The Human Mortality Database (HMD) was created to provide detailed mortality and population data to researchers, students, journalists, policy analysts, and others interested in the history of human longevity. It is the work of two teams of researchers in the USA and Germany with the help of financial backers and scientific collaborators from around the world.

Global Health Data Exchange
The goal of the GHDx is to help people locate data by cataloging information about data including the topics covered, by providing links to data providers or explaining how to acquire the data, and in cases where we have permission, providing the data directly for download.

re3data.org Project Consortium
re3data.org (DataCite) is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. Many of the datasets are focused on basic science research.

Harvard Personal Genome Project
The Genome Project was founded in 2005 and is dedicated to creating public genome, health, and trait data in the belief that sharing data is critical to scientific progress.