Practical guidance from the site side of clinical research.
Field notes on the operating decisions that shape study start-up, patient enrollment, quality, monitoring follow-up, and portfolio performance.
Why GU clinical trials stall at screening—and the first three things to change
How to find where eligible patients are lost between identification, prescreening, approach, consent, and enrollment.
Site problems that can actually be diagnosed.
Merindale focuses on work close to trial execution: feasibility, start-up, participant flow, monitoring follow-up, quality, team ownership, and study workflow.
The goal is not to publish commentary for its own sake. Each guide should help a research leader ask a better operating question, see a process more clearly, or avoid a preventable mistake.
Four problems research sites keep having to solve.
These articles form a connected site-operations library: better decisions before startup, better handoffs during execution, clearer enrollment pathways, and stronger quality follow-up.
10 questions a research site should answer before saying yes
Patient fit, staffing, workflow, budget, startup dependencies, systems, and the conditions that should make a site decline.
Monitoring follow-up is an operating system, not an inbox
A practical framework for triaging findings, assigning owners, deciding when CAPA is needed, and closing with evidence.
7 handoffs that quietly slow study start-up and execution
Where work waits between feasibility, startup, clinic, research, monitoring, data, and portfolio leadership.
Write from the work, not around it.
Every guide is tied to areas informed by hands-on site-side clinical research experience. When a factual statement needs outside support, we link to a primary source, peer-reviewed paper, regulator, or credible industry reference rather than hiding the source behind vague language.
We also separate experience from evidence. “This is what I would look at first” is different from “research shows.” Readers should be able to tell which is which.
The writing is intentionally practical: real operating questions, concrete examples, clear limitations, and internal links that help a reader move from a problem to the related service or deeper guide.
Have a site problem worth unpacking?
If your study is delayed, under-enrolling, carrying repeat findings, or relying on fragile workarounds, start with the operating problem.