AI Chatbot Eases Trialists’ Work, Lifts Patient Enrollment 10%

Just about everyone on the trial team knows this feeling. You need to find participants who meet every eligibility criterion, while the deadline looms, and the trial budget is tight.  

In the rare disease world, this task is not for the fainthearted, as the patient pool is already small. Moreover, these patients may have doubts about the treatment’s effectiveness, fears of getting a placebo treatment, or time commitment issues.  

That’s not the only problem. Both trialists and participants have to follow the protocols to ensure the results are accurate. These protocols are written in complex, tech language and often updated multiple times. So, it’s easy to see why misunderstanding protocols remains the main reason people don’t follow them.  

Our client, a top pharma company making plasma-based medicines for rare diseases, needed a solution to help trialists do their job better and tackle these challenges. 

Challenges 

When candidates refuse to participate, it sets off a domino effect of negative consequences for a pharma brand.  

Slower enrollment means the clinical trial takes longer to complete, which drives costs. Participants often struggle to take time off work for the 3-4-hour trial visits scheduled every few weeks. So, when the study drags on, it becomes even harder for them to stay involved. 

A smaller sample size, in turn, makes the trial results less reliable, as it gets more challenging to accurately detect the drug’s effects or any meaningful differences. Many brands would increase trial sites, try different incentives, or even broaden inclusion criteria just to keep going.  

Instead of treating symptoms, our client wanted to tackle the underlying issue: why trial teams were struggling to meet their KPIs. 

Data overload during enrollment 

There were so many things trialists needed to keep in mind that it often felt overwhelming. Eligibility criteria, trial protocols, documentation requirements, regulations, scheduling, patient information, just to name a few.  

Trialists were stuck sifting through piles of documentation, often unsure if they had the current version or how to interpret it. This not only slowed down enrollment but also increased the risk of mistakes. To keep all balls in the air, they needed immediate access to accurate, easy-to-understand information to help them identify, consent, and enroll patients. 

Lack of ongoing, personalized education 

Sometimes, the brand had to change trial protocols up to seven times because it was nearly impossible to find participants who met all eligibility criteria. Trialists had to keep up with every update. On top of that, they also had to follow the best practices set by the pharma brand to help ensure reliable results. 

Since everyone had different learning needs and progressed at their own pace, it was important to offer trialists a personalized learning experience. This would allow them to skip what they already knew, focus on filling knowledge gaps, and track their progress through brand-aligned tests. 

Solution: AI-Powered Chatbot 

Viseven won the tender for AI chatbot development services to address the client’s challenges.  

A trial expert 

We designed an AI assistant, capable of natural, two-way communication via both voice and text. The chatbot was trained on the client’s data to interpret complex trial protocols and best practices, helping trialists enroll the right participants and keep their knowledge up to date.  

The AI chatbot acts as a trial expert, providing essential information 24/7. Trialists now can provide timely, accurate information to help patients feel informed and confident about participating in the study. 

As the brand’s clinical project manager described it: “Now, they (trialists) can address patients’ concerns right away. This means patients are less likely to take their worries home with them and decide not to participate or to drop out of the trial.” 

Getting fast answers was great, but they also had to be trusted. We made sure the chatbot included clickable citations, so trialists could instantly see the original, verified sources behind every answer.   

A personal learning coach 

Research shows that personalized education is associated with higher motivation, better engagement, and faster progress. Our team had to create a chatbot that would also act as a personal coach adapting education to each trialist’s current needs.  

Trialists get immediate answers from the AI assistant to help with clinical trial procedures and get tips to improve. The brand runs knowledge tests for participants, and the chatbot gives feedback on the spot. This makes it easy for trialists to identify what they don’t know and use the chatbot to learn more.  

The system tracks trialists’ progress and provides stakeholders with easy-to-digest AI-powered analytics dashboards. This bird’s-eye view of performance helps the brand tailor future learning programs. 

Accuracy and Compliance 

We used advanced machine learning models to make data processing more accurate and faster. The chatbot had built-in guardrails to avoid generating false or misleading information or also known as AI hallucinations. 

Viseven is a tech partner of Amazon, which gave us the tools to develop a complex AI solution while meeting the highest security standards. We built the solution to meet ISO compliance rules and added a secure login system to control access. All information stays securely within the client’s system, with no sharing or connection to external internet platforms. 

Outcomes 

The project achieved two big wins: faster patient enrollment and higher pre-screening engagement. 

But the brand also solved a problem they weren’t expecting — high trialist turnover. 

“Before, losing experienced trialists meant losing critical knowledge and wasting time retraining. After the project, fewer people left, and the team became much more stable.”, said a clinical project manager. 

Now, let’s look at the numbers: 

• Clinical trial recruitment time dropped by 25%, helping trials move faster. 

• Pre-screening engagement jumped by 60%, helping trialists address patients’ doubts and build confidence. 

• Patient enrollment rose by 10%. 

Our Takeaway 

Pharma AI solutions often make interactions not just more efficient, but also more human. For our client, using a chatbot meant trialists no longer had to keep every detail in their heads, so they could focus on connecting with patients. It also took pressure off education, which massively improved their job satisfaction.  

That said, many life sciences companies still hesitate to adopt AI in clinical trials. The main reasons are security risks and opaque, “black box” decisions. We always emphasize that it’s important to cooperate with vendors who comply with life sciences industry standards, partner with reliable AI providers, and offer full transparency into how AI makes decisions. They should have a pharma experience and tech expertise combo to understand what you need and deliver tailored solutions.