Marci Mogg is the Vice President of Operations at Mednet, where she leverages her broad and deep experience in clinical research to support Mednet customers, advance the technology and ensure the business is adequately addressing the evolving requirements of clinical trials.
Marci began her career in clinical research while she was still in college when she took a job working with the Minnesota Heart Survey. In her role, she collected health and lifestyle data on randomly selected subjects, and it sparked her interest in the field. After college, she joined a non-profit CRO in New York as a clinical trial manager. During this time, she gained a broader view of clinical research, from assisting with protocol writing to observing procedures being conducted in a cardiac catheterization lab at Lenox Hill Hospital.
Marci eventually decided to move back to Minnesota to be closer to her family. In this process, she discovered Mednet and a new career path. She started at Mednet in 2007 working in project management with client services, now called Technical Project Operations (TPO). Marci held various roles within the department, gaining a great deal of experience while learning about different areas of the Mednet business. In 2019, she moved into her current role overseeing operations, including TPO, development, automated and manual testing and IT.
Marci shares some of her thoughts on her career, contributions, lessons learned and the industry she continues to find fascinating.
What drew you to Mednet?
I loved being able to focus and specialize in one aspect of the research process, the collection and management of the clinical data.
How does your previous experience inform your role at Mednet?
Working for a non-profit CRO in New York taught me a lot about clinical trials. I oversaw and participated in every detail of trial management including investigator meetings, site trainings, Clinical Events Committee (CEC) and Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) meetings. I also got involved in case report form (CRF) development (paper and electronic) and data management. At Mednet, I use this experience as a foundation for best practices when working with customers to create accurate and functional CRFs. I also use my CEC and DSMB experiences to contribute to the design and development of Mednet products.
How does your role impact/improve clinical trials for customers?
That’s one of the best parts of my job. My teams support every aspect of the Mednet product experience. They deliver high quality service and support and ensure product stability. We work to meet the customer needs today while positioning them for the future – their success is our success. This means we need to listen and develop strong client partnerships and that has been a really satisfying aspect of my role.
Can you share a memorable project while working at Mednet? Why was it memorable?
When we transitioned from our legacy product to our current product, iMednet, a CRO client was still using the legacy system for their RTSM needs. Simultaneously, they used iMednet to collect the rest of their data. We needed to support the randomization and inventory functions in the old product for a period. I was the assigned project manager for these studies and over the course of about a year, I helped the client write specifications and create more than 10 different RTSM systems.
Over the course of this project, I learned about many different types of randomization requirements. I also acquired a lot of knowledge about statistical methods in clinical trials. This was more than five years ago, and I still reference things I learned to help current customers. The experience also provided valuable insights that have contributed to internal discussions about product strategy and potential enhancements for iMednet.
What do you see as the biggest challenges in clinical trials?
Right now, I think there are many challenges brought on by COVID-19. Many elective surgery patients are avoiding the clinic. This either slows or halts enrollment in clinical trials. Additionally, the slowdown of travel has reduced the number of in-person monitoring visits.
While COVID-10 certainly presents challenges for keeping clinical trials on track, it is also pushing the industry to think creatively and more rapidly adapt to leveraging tools to enable remote participation of both study participants and research teams. For example, many of our clients are now taking advantage of features in our platform that enable key roles – like study monitors – to perform the work remotely. Others are leveraging our ePRO module to collect data from patients remotely.
What aspects of the clinical trial industry do you find most interesting?
I am fascinated by the variety of different therapies companies are developing to address a variety of critical health concerns. At Mednet, we get to witness a continuing search for better, stronger, safer ways to treat patients. And we get to contribute to that effort by constantly improving the clinical trial process. It’s exciting!
How do you see technology impacting clinical trials?
I think technology will continue to be an important and critical aspect of clinical research. There are so many opportunities to use it to improve the process. From remote monitoring to allowing patients to complete their data from home with tools like ePRO, the right technology can address so many of the inherent challenges of clinical trials.
How do you see clinical trials changing in the next 5-10 years?
I think we’ll continue to see a trend to move data collection closer to the source to improve both the efficiency and the accuracy. This will likely include more patient-entered data along with more integrations with new devices – like wearables and even electronic medical records. Here again we can see there is a huge opportunity for innovative technology to transform our practices.
How do you believe Mednet can make a difference in clinical trials?
Our flexible technology supports present and future clinical trials. We make the data collection more efficient and more accurate and that ripples through the entire clinical trial lifecycle to enable organizations to get safe and effective treatments to market as quickly as possible. We are positively impacting the research teams as well as the patients who await new or improved therapies.
Read More in our Mednet Minds Series:
Jean Brislance: Clinical Trial Experience Delivers Quality at Mednet
Sally Huebner: Hands-On Oncology Experience Delivers Customers’ Clinical Trial Success