How does OmniTrace determine the vital status of a clinical trial patient lost to follow-up?  What a great question! 

Our first efforts are to establish that the clinical trial patient is alive and determine the patient’s current address and phone number.  Each search can be quite different, and our research procedures will vary depending on the makeup of the clinical trial [e.g., age of patients, economic status of patients, health status of patients, geographic information (urban or rural)]. 

When conducting a search for an “alive” patient, we are typically flagged by our proprietary databases if the patient has been deceased for more than thirty days–our databases pull directly from the Social Security Death Index (SSDI).

If we are unable to determine a patient’s current address and the SSDI does not indicate that the patient is deceased, we check available state death indexes which often contain vital status information not in the SSDI.

If we are still unable to determine a patient’s vital status, we search available public records for reported deaths.  These public records consist of possible obituaries and newspaper articles. (Obituaries will vary depending on the state and year of death.)

We also research where the patient was employed and if the patient was a member of any clubs or associations.  We then determine whether any of these entities have posted a notice of death or a memorial.

These are the primary death record resources utilized in HIPAA Compliant Searching.  In a non-HIPAA search, we might simply call family members for patient vital status information.

Additional:

When searching for a patient, we research many database sources such as property deeds and real time phone listings.  These are very current public records and will greatly narrow down the time-frame of a possible death.  We research if anyone new has recently purchased or moved into the patients’s most current listed address.  If not, this is a good sign that the patient still resides there.  We also research whether the patient’s consumer/credit history has had recent changes.  Are there bills going to the patient’s address?  Are there any other addresses?

There are many other nuances involved with searching, and it is difficult to cover all of these. As an example, we know that not everyone is listed in the SSDI.  The SSDI is an index of all persons with Social Security Numbers that have been reported to the Social Security Administration.  These deaths are usually reported by a survivor requesting death benefits or to stop Social Security benefits to the decedent.  Because of this, when we are researching the patient, we look to see if they are married or if they have living children.  If so, and they died, almost certainly they would be listed in the SSDI.  If we see that a patient lived alone, was predeceased by their spouse and/or does not have living children, there is a greater likelihood that the patient is not listed in the SSDI.

Finally the greatest concern in determining patient vital status are very recent deaths which do not allow enough time for the data to appear in our databases and public records (i.e., an updated SSDI and obituaries and notices of death have not yet become available).  Because of this, we err on the side of caution and typically show the patient alive at a conservative earlier date.  We will also continue to rerun our database searches until we determine the vital status of the patient.

For those of you who are curious, OmniTrace may access many proprietary databases, public record resources and genealogical resources resources when we search for patients and determine vital status.  These include:

• Credit header information
• Employment records
• Telephone directory information
• Magazine, newspaper and book club subscriptions
• Motor vehicle and traffic accident records
• Driver’s License Records
• Cell phone users
• Boat owners
• Postal records
• UCC filings
• Corporate information
• Reverse directories
• Internet search engines
• Liens, judgments, civil and criminal records
• Pizza delivery listings
• Bankruptcy records
• Obituary notices
• Property records
• Census records
• State and national birth and death records
• Additional state and county specific databases

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Please share your thoughts regarding our post on Determining Clinical Trial Patient Vital Status.  And, please do email or call us with any questions you have about our OmniTrace Corp. patient search and patient retention services:

dave@omnitrace.com (Dave Betz)
888-965-6696

Our OmniTrace patient locator division has located well over five thousand patients who were at one point considered lost to follow-up.

Finding missing people is all we do (well almost).  We have located tens of thousands of people including:  clinical trial patients, lost friends, military personnel, lost loves, classmates, debtors, dead beat parents, missing heirs, lost family members and persons in hiding. 

Here are a few reasons why you should consider OmniTrace as your patient locator provider:

• We have a tremendous amount of experience finding people from all walks of life all over the world and have worked with patient recruiters, principal investigators, physicians and study coordinators on a wide variety of clinical research studies.
• We combine state-of-the-art database searching with old world genealogical research methods.
• We will assign an experienced, dedicated researcher to your file to provide the most timely results.
• We have an unsurpassed success rate and we guarantee our patient locator results.
• We are knowledgeable about patient retention and understand why patients become lost, allowing us to customize our patient locator service for each clinical trial. 

Please email or call us with any questions you have about our patient locator service:

dave@omnitrace.com (Dave Betz)
888-965-6696

THE CONTENT ON OUR OMNITRACE OWNED WEBSITES IS MERELY GENERAL INFORMATION OBTAINED BY ORDINARY PEOPLE AND NOT LEGAL ADVICE.  ONLY A QUALIFIED LAWYER CAN GIVE LEGAL ADVICE.  WE ARE NOT LAWYERS.

Patient Recruiters, Principal Investigators and Study Coordinators can greatly improve clinical trial retention and reduce patients lost to follow-up by simply obtaining more contact information when the patient is first recruited into a study.  Detailed contact information will allow a search company, such as OmniTrace, many more avenues to find a patient in the event the patient becomes lost. 

We suggest you request the following information when enlisting a new patient for a clinical trial: 

• Full Name
• Current Address
• Maiden Name (if applicable)
• Social Security Number
• Date of Birth
• State of Birth
• Physical Description
• Marital Status
• Employer / Occupation
• Education (high school, college, years attended)
• Military Service (branch, when discharged)
• Religion (where they attend church)
• Hobbies
• Family Member (s) Address and Phone Information
• Best Person To Contact In Event Of Emergency

Having a patient’s Social Security Number (SSN) typically allows us to to use proprietary databases to find a patient fast.  However, in many instances, having a SSN is not enough to find a patient.  This might occur if:

• A patient is not using their SSN to conduct personal transactions.
• A patient is not residing under their own name (e.g. living with relative or friend).
• A patient provides the wrong SSN, it is taken down incorrectly, or it is illegible.
• A patient is using another person’s SSN (e.g. a wife is using her husband’s SSN).
• A patient becomes indigent.
• A patient is in a nursing home.
• A patient has little or no consumer history.

In the above instances and others, OmniTrace will likely need information, besides a SSN, to find a lost patient. 

For your convenience, here is the form we use at OmniTrace when we request information on a missing subject:

Missing Person Search Form (PDF File)

Perhaps you can use it as a guideline to create a new, more detailed, patient intake form. 

Please share your thoughts regarding our post.  Also, please email or call us with any questions you have about our OmniTrace Corp. patient find and patient retention services:

dave@omnitrace.com (Dave Betz)
888-965-6696

THE CONTENT ON OUR OMNITRACE OWNED WEBSITES IS MERELY GENERAL INFORMATION OBTAINED BY ORDINARY PEOPLE AND NOT LEGAL ADVICE.  ONLY A QUALIFIED LAWYER CAN GIVE LEGAL ADVICE.  WE ARE NOT LAWYERS.

Patient Locate

We’d like to provide you additional information about OmniTrace Corp. and our patient locate services.

Who Are We?

OmniTrace Corporation, a licensed and bonded private investigation agency, headquartered in Delray Beach, Florida, established in 2001, is the premier patient locate service provider to the clinical trial industry.

In the USA, Europe, South America and elsewhere, OmniTrace locates Lost To Follow-Up patients required to (a) assure collection of protocol driven endpoints; (b) increase potential of timely trial completion; (c) avoid increased expenditures, and; (d) meet regulatory focus of safety and poststudy surveillance.

OmniTrace Provides guaranteed patient locate results, outstanding customer service and the best project management services in the industry.

So, Why Use OmniTrace?
(We thought you’d never ask!)

• Improve clinical trial results through increased patient participation
• Reduce FDA scrutiny of trial results
• Decrease expenses via improved efficiencies, increased patient participation and timely trial completion
• Reduce employee workload by shifting responsibilities to OmniTrace
• Improve HIPAA compliance by reducing clinical trial mistakes

HIPAA Compliant Search Procedures

• We never receive or retrieve medical information regarding the patient
• OmniTrace never contacts a patient or the patient’s family members
• We do not release patient information to the sponsor
• The information that we require to initiate a search is publicly available to anyone

We’ll be providing much more information about our patient locate services in future posts.  In the meantime, please contact David Betz at 888-965-6696 with any questions you may have.  You can also email Dave at dave@OmniTrace.com.  You can even leave a comment below!

THE CONTENT ON OUR OMNITRACE OWNED WEBSITES IS MERELY GENERAL INFORMATION OBTAINED BY ORDINARY PEOPLE AND NOT LEGAL ADVICE.  ONLY A QUALIFIED LAWYER CAN GIVE LEGAL ADVICE.  WE ARE NOT LAWYERS.