While individual clinical research trials are unique in pursuit of better ways to treat, diagnose, prevent or screen for disease, they all share a common challenge—pre-screening and screening potential trial participants for enrollment. Most often a manual process, screening participants for eligibility in a trial has typically included answering a set of questions via a web-based survey tool, the phone or even in person.

The very nature of clinical trials and the screening information that needs to be collected, including health-related and medical history questions, means that pre-screening criteria can be complicated—something that web-based surveys and telephone interviews can’t necessarily accommodate—and in-person pre-screening makes very costly.