A CRC (clinical research coordinator) is one of the most important people regarding clinical trials. He/she is the person who’s in charge of conducting the clinical trial, under the guidance of the PI (principal investigator). As the people responsible for coordinating all the activities on site, CRCs can sometimes carry a huge workload. This can quickly become a big problem not only for the CRC but also for everyone else involved in the study. Determining the right workload for your CRC is one of the most important actions that you (as a site owner or PI) should take. Ideally, a CRC should work 4 to 6 effective hours per day. However, you will notice that there will be periods of time when the CRC has to work more than 8 hours but also periods when he/she will be free most of the days. In this article, we’ll help you find the right balance so that your CRC isn’t too overworked or underworked.

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Regulating the Workload of Your Clinical Research
Coordinator (CRC)
A CRC (clinical research coordinator) is one of the most important people regarding
clinical trials. He/she is the person who’s in charge of conducting the clinical trial,
under the guidance of the PI (principal investigator). As the people responsible for
coordinating all the activities on site, CRCs can sometimes carry a huge workload.
This can quickly become a big problem not only for the CRC but also for everyone
else involved in the study.
Determining the right workload for your CRC is one of the most important actions
that you (as a site owner or PI) should take. Ideally, a CRC should work 4 to 6
effective hours per day. However, you will notice that there will be periods of time
when the CRC has to work more than 8 hours but also periods when he/she will be
free most of the days. In this article, we’ll help you find the right balance so that
your CRC isn’t too overworked or underworked.
The CRC workload depends on many variable factors:
- The complexity of the study​ - How complicated a study is can be one of the
greatest factors when you’re determining CRC workload. Some studies are
really simple while others can be extremely complex. Patient visits in simpler
studies can last only for some minutes, while in more complicated studies
these visits can last over 5 hours. These are all important factors that should
be taken into consideration when you’re looking at your CRC’s workload.

2. - The frequency of patient visits​ - Do the patients only come once? Do they
have to come back every 30 days? Or once a week? Or every second day?
These are all questions that determine the workload of the CRC.
- The number of enrolled patients​ - Even if a site has various open studies,
usually they don’t manage to find the targeted number of enrolled patients
for all of them. Normally, sites would only have one or two active studies
which are active and for which they actually managed to enroll the desired
number of patients. The number of active studies, as well as the number of
enrolled patients in each study, are two important factors that can show you
the CRC workload.
A simple example of CRC workload (to simplify your calculation
process):
1st case scenario: Daily Patient Visits
Let’s say that one typical patient visit lasts for 1 hour (although some might be
much more). After every patient visit, the CRC will need approximately 3 more
hours to gather and enter all the data. So this means that the CRC will have 4 to 5
hours of actual work in a day. A normal working day is usually 8 hours. This leaves
the CRC with enough time to have a lunch break, coffee break, as well as to finish
some smaller daily tasks or talk to colleagues. In this case, the CRC isn’t overworked
but probably won’t have much time to handle and coordinate other site activities.
2nd case scenario: Patient Visits Every Second Day
This second scenario is much more likely to happen at most sites. The CRC will
normally not have patient visits every day (except if the number of participants is
huge), but maybe every second day. This gives the CRC many free days which
he/she can use to coordinate other site activities.
3rd case scenario: Multiple Short Patient Visits per Day
In this last case, patient visits might last 10 or 15 minutes (again, depending on the
type of study), so the coordinator might have multiple patient visits per day. In this
case, when the CRC receives two or three patients per day, he won’t have time to do

3. other site activities as well (since he will also have to take care of all the data after
patients leave).
In all of these above cases, CRCs aren’t overworked. However, if you give them
additional work apart from the above-mentioned, then this will be considered as a
big workload. Try to follow the workload (daily activities) of your CRC for a period of
time in order to determine if he/she is overworked or underworked. Knowing this
will help you take the necessary steps to fix it. If the CRC is overworked, you can
either hire someone as help or maybe give some of his tasks to another staff
member.
Working in Compliance
Another thing that has many site owners worried is if the CRC is working in
compliance and by the law. If there’s something wrong with the way a site is
operating, your monitors will notify you immediately on their next visit. The only 3
things that CRCs and other site staff need to respect are to follow:
- GCP (Good Clinical Practice);
- SOP (Standard Operating Procedures); and
- The study protocol;
If your CRC follows these 3 practices, then there’s really nothing to worry about. In
any case, even if the quality of work of your CRC is not good, your monitors will let
you know on their next visit (they will usually visit your site every 6 weeks).
Another thing you can do if you wish to further ensure the quality of your CRC’s
work is put in place a QA system (quality assurance). The people who are
responsible for QA will basically double-check the work of your CRC after every
patient visit in order to make sure that everything is done correctly. Doing this can
greatly improve your CRC’s work and all the operations on site.
Conclusion
To sum up, the workload of CRCs can greatly vary from site to site. This depends on
many factors such as the nature of the study, the number of enrolled patients, the
number of active studies, the longevity of patient visits, etc. In any case, there can

4. be periods of time when the CRC is overworked, but there will also be periods when
he/she is underworked. So, finally, you as a site owner should follow the CRC’s
workload and make sure that there’s a balance. A coordinator who’s constantly
overworked won’t be able to perform well.
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Or Call
(415) 873-9709