Enrolling Patients and Collecting Data
Q: What is the greatest barrier to study completion?
A: Maintaining momentum during enrollment and data collection!
Patient enrollment and data collection takes time, persistence and perseverance. During this phase it is important for the team to stay focused and, at the same time, to come up with creative ways to have fun and celebrate small milestones along the way. Celebrating small milestones helps the team recognize progress during this long and sometimes tedious study phase. Suggestions for maintaining momentum include:
- Giving unit or departmental presentations of the study and its progress
- Submitting for small grants to support components of the study, such as presentation of results at professional meetings
- Acknowledging individual team members through unit appreciation awards
- Hosting unit celebrations for enrollment milestones, such as “Dinner for 10” (ten staff members taken to dinner by the research team) as each ten patients complete the study.)
- Serve “Data-Nut Bread” to the entire unit for designated enrollment milestones.*
*Recipe for Data-Nut Bread
1 (8oz) package chopped dates; ½ cup chopped pecans; 1 teaspoon baking soda/ 1 cup hot water; ¼ cup shortening; 2/3 cup sugar; 1 egg; 2 cups all-purpose flour; ½ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
- Stir dates, pecans, and soda into hot water; set aside to cool.
- Cream shortening; gradually add sugar and beat well with mixer.
- Add egg and beat well. Stir vanilla into this mix.
- Combine flour and salt and gradually stir in date and pecan mixture alternately until all ingredients are stirred together evenly.
- Pour into 2 greased and floured loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour.
- Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then cool out of pans on a wire rack until ready to serve!
