Dr Pascale Dettwiller1
1SA Health Department of Health and Wellbeing – Australian Teletrial Program, Adelaide, Australia
Biography:
Dr Pascale Dettwiller holds a doctorate in pharmacy and is a clinical trial liaison officer and business developer for the South Australian Teletrial Program since 2022. She also holds a senior executive position at the Country SA Primary Health Network and SA Pharmacy. Currently, Pascale is involved in developing leads for Teletrials from existing clinical trials and new concepts to address health gaps. She has been a successful researcher with many well-published works. Pascale is an advocate for equity, diversity, inclusion, and access to rural and regional development and community engagement for the betterment of healthcare delivery for regional care.
Abstract:
The Australian Teletrial Program (ATP) is funded by the Commonwealth Government’s Medical Research Future Fund –2019 Rural, Regional and Remote Clinical Trial Enabling Infrastructure grant – ‘access to clinical trials closer to home’ – project of $75.2M over five years.
The poor enrolment and participation of regional residents in clinical trials are well documented and illustrate the inequity in service access.
The roll-out of the ATP in South Australia has enabled clinical trials and services to be provided to under-served populations. This paper will present the program and its implementation in mental health and nephrology using case studies.
Teletrials are a new model for conducting decentralised clinical trials co-designed with sponsors and the Community. A Teletrial uses telehealth/digital technology to communicate between the Primary Site and Satellite Site/s and enable the delivery of aspects of a clinical trial.
Using one example in mental health and one example in nephrology, the presentation will present the enabling factors of the program;
– Increase access to clinical trials; active community engagement;
– Develop collaboration between rural, regional, remote, Indigenous communities and services, and metropolitan centres (public and private);
– Build clinical trial capacity using workforce-accredited training, publish high-level evidence-based research using clinical trial methodology, and generate transformative changes.
Through decentralised clinical trials – using a co-design model with a patient-centred approach – patients can be seen closer to home; the model has the potential to improve quality of life, increase scientific knowledge, and better knowledge transfer and applicability.