Funnel Vision: Why Recruitment Metrics Miss the Human Experience

This chart brought to you by: absolutely no one who talked to a real patient.

Welcome aboard. If you're here, it means you're ready to ditch the tired charts, the conversion obsession, and that one sacred cow known as "screening rate." Yes, we said it. We’re starting our journey into the VanaVerse by challenging one of the most deeply entrenched dogmas in clinical trial recruitment. Because here's the truth:

When we reduce human experience to a funnel, we forget who we’re actually here to serve.

For decades, the industry has been fixated on one KPI to rule them all: patients screened per site per month. It’s neat, it’s measurable, and it looks great in a PowerPoint. But it’s also about as useful as measuring joy with a stopwatch.

And yet – it’s the metric many professionals are evaluated against. It’s the scoreboard their performance is judged on, even if the game itself has changed.

The Problem with the Funnel

Funnel logic assumes that the more you pour into the top, the more will trickle out at the bottom. It works for maple syrup. Not for people.

When we treat patients as data points sliding down a funnel, we:

• Prioritize volume over understanding

• Ignore the emotional, logistical, and psychological journey of participation

• Create strategies optimized for speed, not for success

Screening rate is an output. But it tells you nothing about:

• The quality of referrals

• The clarity of communication

• The patient’s level of confidence, readiness, or understanding

• Why a patient almost enrolled but didn’t

And here's the thing: improving the human experience doesn't mean abandoning performance. In fact, it’s how we elevate it. When patients are informed, when expectations are aligned, when sites are supported – you get better screening rates as a result. Not artificially inflated numbers. Real, sustainable success.

Let’s Talk About Better Metrics

We’re not anti-measurement. We’re anti-flat measurement. At ClinVana, we believe in metrics that reflect The Human Protocol – our philosophy that every interaction in the recruitment journey should be thoughtful, respectful, and human-centered. Here are a few alternatives:

1. Expectation Alignment Rate

How many patients report that the trial experience matched what they expected from pre-screening materials?

This is a leading indicator of dropout risk, protocol misunderstandings, and trial readiness.

2. Informed Confidence Score

A short, validated patient-reported measure of how confident they feel in their decision to participate.

This is about clarity, not coercion. It helps us know if our messaging is truly empowering.

3. Site Burden Index

How much time and effort site staff are spending managing unclear, low-quality referrals?

If your campaign is burning out site coordinators with noise instead of delivering real value, it’s failing.

4. Message Resonance Delta

How well do patients and caregivers recall, interpret, and act on your outreach communications?

This is qualitative and quantitative. It's not about click-through rates – it's about cognitive traction.

5. Commitment Drop Curve

When patients disengage, when do they do it, and why?

It’s not enough to know that they left. We need to understand when and why to improve the journey.

The Funnel Was Never the Point

We’re not here to attack analytics. We’re here to humanize them.

It’s time to stop measuring movement and start measuring meaning. Because in the VanaVerse, we believe that insight isn’t a dashboard – it’s a window into experience.

So, go ahead. Retire that screening rate slide – or better yet, put it in context. Ask better questions. Get better answers. And most of all, never forget:

We don’t run trials to push people through funnels.

We run them to light the path forward.

Welcome to the VanaVerse.

We don't just optimize the funnel. We humanize it.