A RIPPLE SCIENCE CASE STUDY Stony Brook University’s Social Competence and Treatment Lab Excels with Faster Recruitment, Cost Savings, and Double Recruitment Calls Matthew D Lerner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry, & Pediatrics, directs the Social Competence and Treatment Lab (SCTL) at Stony Brook University The lab researches how children, teens, and adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can benefit from various social skill interventions such as connecting and making friends and developing new ways to help them so This type of interventional research can be maintenance-intensive because most of their interventions are ten weeks long and include several cycles and multiple assessment timepoints Debi Gross, the former project coordinator at SCTL, now serves as Community Outreach Director for Stony Brook’s autism initiative Before using Ripple, the SCTL study team shared one Excel spreadsheet to recruit and track participants This process became cumbersome, especially with the amount of participant and family data they were entering After a productive morning of recruitment calls, the shared spreadsheet crashed, and Debi lost 30 participant names The team also tried to work with a home-grown database Debi shared, “We had a developer come in and try to create a program specifically for us Due to other limitations, the Problem: To manage participant recruitment and tracking, the team started with one shared Excel spreadsheet, followed by a home-grown database, neither of which addressed the needs of their growing team Solution: Ripple streamlined their participant recruitment and tracking activities into one easy-to-access platform, enabling better management of high student turnover in the lab and increasing productivity with the ability to access Ripple from anywhere Benefits: + Cost savings with real-time analytics to understand which recruiting activities are working + Well-designed web-based user-interface makes working enjoyable + Doubles the amount of recruiting calls the team makes in an hour + The SCTL team can provide a personal, high touch experience for participants and their families + Recruitment is faster and shorter + Ripple makes their jobs easier + Direct access to the Ripple Science team enhances the SCTL’s efficiency ©2020 Ripple Science All rights reserved www.ripplescience.com A RIPPLE SCIENCE CASE STUDY database wasn’t meeting the criteria required for our lab, given the speed we were growing.” Debi chose Ripple because of the user interface design, ease of use, and accessibility to Ripple’s staff strategies, which also saves us money The dashboard tells me on which events to focus I’ll look at the numbers and break them down, such as how many girls, boys, and minorities we recruited.” The Ripple training and support team provided Debi the ability to train new team members quickly Materials such as recorded training helped on board new research assistants while Debi focused on recruitment As part of their subscription, Debi can contact Ripple to schedule training or seek guidance on setting up a new study She commented, “the accessibility to Ripple’s staff makes a world of difference.”Now, when a research assistant leaves, anyone else on the team can easily pick up where that left off by looking at the tasks already detailed in Ripple, which ensures nothing falls through the cracks “The fact that Ripple is web-based is a game-changer.” Debi Gross, Community Outreach Director, Stony Brook Autism Initiative The SCTL team recruits from within their local community, maintaining a high level of interaction with families Debi spends a lot of time with families by way of coordinating and working in the interventions, attending support meetings and fairs, and running recreational programs out their lab With Ripple, she documents the important details ensuring stronger relationships with the participants, leading to higher retention rates Debi explained, “I know our participants personally We can keep track of everything we said, as well as what needs to be said to each family.” In addition to documenting participant details, it is also essential to understand how they became enrolled “The bottom line is that I love Ripple because it makes my job easier.” Debi Gross, Community Outreach Director, Stony Brook Autism Initiative Debi’s new role is remote, where she spends the majority of her time at community events or working from home Her favorite aspect of Ripple is that she feels like she’s in the lab without actually being there She expressed, “The fact that Ripple is web-based is a game-changer for us I can be on the phone with our new recruitment lead looking at the same potential participant in Ripple and ask her why no one contacted this person yet? We are also able to make double the calls per hour, so it’s incredibly more efficient The bottom line is that I love Ripple because it makes my job easier The time between when participants contact us to enrolling them in a study seems a lot shorter and quicker.” For questions contact us at: marketing@ripplescience.com Ripple’s dashboard provides visibility into participant enrollment goals, recruitment tactic performance, and a breakdown of customizable demographics Debi uses the dashboard for every study She revealed, “Ripple provides a different perspective of our recruitment marketing@ripplescience.com ripplescience.com Elevating experiences from recruitment to results Ripple Science’s seamless, centralized system makes it easy to find, track, manage and connect with research participants at every stage in their journey