For academic medical centers

Many departments. One operating view for startup.

TrialConnx gives AMC research teams a shared view of feasibility, budget, contract, IRB, ownership, and activation across every department, every PI, and every sponsor handoff.

AMC Portfolio: 78 studies across 6 departments Live
Oncology
224 stuck
Cardiology
152 stuck
Pediatrics
13On track
Neuro
116 stuck
Surgery
92 stuck
GI
83 stuck
Healthy Slowing Stuck > 30 days
89 days
Industry median for startup cycle
Tufts CSDD, 2024
+64%
Activation-time increase when scaling from 2 to 5 concurrent studies without a system
AMC case study (anonymized)
46%
Activation-time reduction at one AMC after structured startup
AMC case study (anonymized)
21 days
Saved per study at the same AMC without adding headcount
AMC case study (anonymized)

The honest answer

AMC startup crosses many teams.

Modern AMCs run startup across research administration, principal investigators, departments, contracts, budget, regulatory, finance, sponsors, and CROs. That’s by design.

But work that crosses 8-12 teams needs shared visibility. Twelve different spreadsheets and one director’s institutional memory cannot hold it all.

Without a shared layer

Each department tracks startup in its own way. Cross-department visibility lives in email and in someone’s head.

→
With TrialConnx

One operating view of feasibility, budget, contract, IRB, and activation across every department.

What changes

Six things AMCs can do with TrialConnx that they can’t do today.

Six concrete capabilities address the structural problems that come with running startup across many departments.

Department portfolio view

See every department’s startup load and bottlenecks in one place.

Slice the AMC portfolio by department, stage, owner, or aging. Spot the hot zones before leadership has to ask.

Oncology
22
Cardio
15
Neuro
11
Surgery
9
Time saved
21
days saved per study

One AMC. Two process changes informed by visibility. No added headcount.

AMC case study (anonymized)

Custody-of-document tracking

Who holds the contract right now. Who’s the IRB owner. When did it hand off. Not a generic assignee field.

Feasibility decision memory

Why a study was accepted, declined, or paused gets captured at the moment and stays available when a similar protocol comes back 18 months later.

IRB first-pass
85%
approval rate at structured AMCs

Vs. 52% under multi-study load without a system. Structured handoffs cut rework before it starts.

AMC case study (anonymized) · 88% reduction in status meetings
From the case study “

Two process changes informed by visibility cut 21 days per study and dropped weekly status meetings from 6 hours to 45 minutes. No added headcount.

Anonymized AMC case study

A day with the startup layer

What changes between 8:30 and 5:00.

What a research administrator’s day looks like once startup work has a shared operating layer instead of email threads, spreadsheets, and weekly status meetings.

8:30 AM
New study request in intake
Auto-routed to the right department lead based on therapeutic area and capacity.
10:00 AM
PI feasibility review
Similar past protocols and prior decision memory surface alongside the new request.
12:30 PM
Budget redline arrives
Cycle aging tracked. Owner sees days-in-stage vs. AMC norm at a glance.
2:00 PM
IRB revision request
Routed to regulatory lead with prior revision history. No re-explanation needed.
4:00 PM
Department standup
Look at the portfolio dashboard, not 12 spreadsheets. 15 min, not 60.
5:00 PM
Director weekly summary
Portfolio health auto-generated. 45 minutes vs. 6 hours of meetings.

Signs the gap is real

If two or more sound familiar, your AMC needs its own startup layer.

These signs do not mean your departments are running startup wrong. They mean the work has outgrown the spreadsheets and email threads that used to hold it.

You can’t quickly tell which department has the most studies stuck without a project.
A new research admin can’t see why a study was paused or declined six months ago.
Sponsor follow-ups depend on whichever team member happened to email the PI most recently.
Leadership asks for portfolio health and someone has to manually update a slide.
Two departments are tracking the same study in different spreadsheets, with different statuses.
You activate fewer studies per year than you’d like, and can’t quickly say why.

Operational fit

Built around the work AMCs actually run.

Not a generic project tool. Not a CTMS. A purpose-built operating layer for the months between intake and activation, shaped around the AMC structure.

AMC reality What goes wrong without a layer TrialConnx role
Feasibility needs PI + department input Decisions live in email and can’t be compared across studies or departments Structured feasibility with status, ownership, and decision memory
Budget and contract work move in parallel No one can tell whether activation is blocked by cost, coverage, redlines, or handoff Shared startup workstreams with bottleneck visibility per department
IRB status changes repeatedly Submission cycles are hard to explain to leadership without manual updates IRB stage tracking with aging, ownership, and revision-cycle context
Leadership needs portfolio health Conduct systems have no useful pre-activation data Pre-activation dashboards for startup health and cycle time, by department
Many sponsor and CRO touchpoints External handoffs disappear into someone’s inbox Custody-of-document visibility: who holds the next action, when it handed off

See how TrialConnx maps to your AMC startup workflow.

Bring your current intake, feasibility, budget, contract, and IRB flow. We’ll show how the startup layer fits around the way your departments already work, without a department-level reshuffle.

Request a walkthrough →