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Translation of Study Materials

    Ancillary Trial Supplies and EquipmentBusiness InsightsClinical Trial Writing and DesignSite Materials & LogisticsTranslation of Study Materials

    How Can You Boost Clinical Trial Management Efficiency When Working with Vendors?

    by Dan McDonald February 26, 2025
    written by Dan McDonald

    Discover how to boost clinical trial management efficiency and minimize pain points for your next clinical study.

    The Complex Landscape of Clinical Studies

    The management hours required to oversee the many components of a clinical trial are substantial. Clinical operations teams typically concentrate on several key areas, including study startup, site initiation and activation, supply chain management, monitoring, data management, and safety.

    Key site needs and patient engagement components that need to be managed include:

    • Clinical study and site materials, including graphic design and writing
    • Clinical translation management
    • Printing
    • Procurement and management of ancillary clinical trial supplies and equipment
    • Kitting
    • Warehousing
    • Global logistics, including shipping materials and equipment internationally
    • Digital and video projects, including websites, apps, and patient videos

    The growing global footprint of clinical studies, the evolution to decentralized clinical trial models, and the importance of health literacy and diversity in clinical trials further complicate this landscape. Not to mention more recent geopolitical factors, from border tightening to tariffs. Together, these factors create a highly complex and demanding environment that requires efficient management to ensure successful outcomes.

    Challenges of Managing Multiple Vendors

    In addition to managing many elements of a research study, clinical project managers must often oversee up to eight vendors, each with unique requirements. This calls for numerous meetings, team members, and timelines, and makes management highly complex and potentially disruptive to study timelines.

    The failure to identify, plan for, and synchronize these elements can lead to unexpected delays and headaches. Managing multiple vendors is outside the core competencies of many CROs and sponsors. This can further exacerbate these challenges and create a need for more efficient solutions.

    Interconnected Dependencies in Clinical Trials

    The interconnected nature of the individual components of clinical trials means that each element impacts the others. A good example is that the way something is written affects its translation. Writing clinical trial content with translation in mind proactively ensures the source text is clear and easy to read, making the translation process more efficient, thus eliminating the potential for system-induced errors.

    Text expansion during translation is often 20-25% (even up to 35% in some languages), which impacts formatting. Planning for text expansion and contraction during the initial creative design process can prevent formatting issues later. Planning during the initial creative design process can allow for text expansion and contraction without impacting the overall design. Too often, these activities are done in a vacuum. Vendors that need to be in lockstep often are not, which creates issues with resource planning and time management.

    The project manager’s challenges in directing multiple vendors with their unique teams and processes are compounded by the always-pressing study timeline, with its numerous requirements, both fixed and nuanced.

    Just one piece of the timeline, for example, the translation process, is based on when the writer’s files are ready. Next comes the translation, eventually leading to layout, formatting, and printing. All of this requires seamless communication and the transfer of files back and forth with multiple independent vendors. Then, shipping must be managed, likely to many international destinations.

    And speaking of international destinations, the project manager’s timeline is likely to include the unique demands of medical kitting, as well as ancillary supplies and equipment. Complex supply and resupply schedules must be managed across multiple manufacturing and distributor partners and time zones. Having an ancillary supplies partner that differs from an equipment partner and may also differ from a kitting partner means that you must have a central platform to manage, view, and report on all these disparate pieces. A single-vendor solution not only reduces the complication of managing multiple vendors but also reduces risk and boosts clinical trial management efficiency by having complete visibility into the site readiness supply chain at all times.

    Vendor Consolidation and Its Impact on Clinical Trial Management Efficiency

    The activities I’ve listed, and more, should be redistributed into a single workstream. Combining as many services as possible with one vendor can alleviate the complexities and create clinical trial management efficiency. By managing these pieces together in a single workstream, study managers gain tremendous visibility and centralized control over file versions, quality, speed, and cost.

    Vendor consolidation recognizes that the quality and approach to work on one component impacts others. This integrated approach can streamline processes, reduce the need to manage constant communication, and coordinate the different activities among multiple vendors. Fewer meetings!

    A Comprehensive Solution

    Imperial provides a single vendor, a single point of contact, and a dedicated project manager devoted to staying on top of details and timelines to make your study a success. Whether creating a single workflow for your study or managing just one essential part, Imperial’s comprehensive solution ensures clinical trial management efficiency. By consolidating services, Imperial helps streamline clinical trial management, enhancing efficiency and reducing complexity. Visit our website and contact us for more information.

    February 26, 2025 0 comment
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  • Clinical Trial Writing and DesignPatient EngagementSite Materials & LogisticsTranslation of Study Materials

    Clinical Research Translation: Can You Manage all the Moving Parts?

    by Heather Ross May 2, 2024
    by Heather Ross May 2, 2024

    Clinical research translation affects almost every global study. Understanding the translation process and the planning required can help keep your study on track. Clinical trial statistics can be surprising. We frequently write about different aspects of the growing complexity of global clinical trials. Despite the…

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  • Translation of Study Materials

    Clinical Trial Translation: Precision Is Key

    by Erica Manning May 9, 2023
    by Erica Manning May 9, 2023

    Accurate clinical trial translation services are key to the overall success of a study. Each participant needs to receive the same information in their native language to ensure consistent study messaging across all languages and accuracy to the protocol. I’ve compiled key translation best practices…

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  • Ancillary Trial Supplies and EquipmentClinical Trial Writing and DesignPatient EngagementPatient Recruitment and RetentionSite Materials & LogisticsTranslation of Study Materials

    Clinical Trial Efficiencies: The Power of a Single Workstream

    by Dan McDonald August 18, 2022
    by Dan McDonald August 18, 2022

    The management time needed to corral many different elements during a trial is immense. In the buildup to a research study, clinical operations teams often focus on items such as study startup, site initiation and activation, supply chain, monitoring, data management, and safety. And there…

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  • Translation of Study Materials

    Machine Translation: OK for Your Clinical Trial Materials?

    by Sian Lukaszewicz February 15, 2022
    by Sian Lukaszewicz February 15, 2022

    The number of global trials grows every year, with study teams reaching out to increasingly diverse patient populations. These broader populations bring a growing variety of languages, cultures, and experiences – all of which need to be considered when recruiting or interacting with clinical trial…

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  • Translation of Study Materials

    Translations for Clinical Trials: COVID-19 Brings Special Challenges

    by Sian Lukaszewicz September 30, 2021
    by Sian Lukaszewicz September 30, 2021

    Translations for Clinical Trials: COVID-19 Brings Special Challenges

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  • Translation of Study Materials

    Better Instead of Worse: 3 Tips for Managing Translation Document Review

    by Erica Manning August 24, 2021
    by Erica Manning August 24, 2021

    The documents we create for clinical trials are collections of words. Reviewing these documents can be a straightforward process, with the final draft approved after one or two rounds of changes. In clinical trial translation management, sometimes a document is improved by the edits, sometimes…

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  • Translation of Study Materials

    Keep Mother Languages Alive!

    by Erica Manning February 23, 2021
    by Erica Manning February 23, 2021

    Many people take their language skills for granted (even if it is just one). Mother tongue is the language or dialect a person is first exposed to and may also be considered the language or dialect of a person’s ethnic group. Language allows us human…

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  • Business InsightsTranslation of Study Materials

    Google Translate: The Unwitting Confidentiality Flaw

    by Sian Lukaszewicz April 15, 2020
    by Sian Lukaszewicz April 15, 2020

    The Information Age has impacted a wide range of industries and workplaces. The translation industry has been no stranger to technological advancements, predominantly with the introduction and ever increasing use of machine translation. The most renowned translation software is Google Translate. Launched in April 2006,…

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  • Clinical Trial Writing and DesignTranslation of Study Materials

    Writing clinical trial content for translation: How to hit a home run

    by William McEwen August 14, 2019
    by William McEwen August 14, 2019

    Oh wait, the title of this blog would not translate easily. A translator once told me that baseball idioms, used frequently in the United States, are difficult to translate. While baseball is popular in the U.S., experience with the sport and associated expressions vary globally.…

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Imperial Clinical Research Services Blog

Imperial is a global leader in clinical trial solutions and support, specializing in study and site print materials, ancillary trial supplies and equipment, clinical trial translation management, and clinical trial patient engagement.

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