Featuring insight from Emma Eikermann, a former site coordinator and current Product Manager at Mural Health, and Courtney Collins, VP of Customer Success at Mural Health

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<div class="text-style-super-quote is-smaller">“Not having a site coordinator with the time and emotional energy to give to participants will be the biggest cause for those participants dropping out of a trial. I don’t think enough sponsors realize this.”</div>

<div class="text-style-quote-source">— Emma Eikermann, former site coordinator and current Product Manager at Mural Health</div>

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Clinical research sites are the engine of medical progress, but behind every data point and protocol is a team juggling unpredictable schedules, complex systems, and human emotions. Days often begin with proactive planning and end in reactive triage. On paper, the day might look organized, but in practice, it's a constant shuffle of participant care, administrative demands, and siloed systems and tools that only seem to make their job harder. 

At Mural Health, we know that reality really well. Our participant management platform, Mural Link, is shaped by the lived experiences of site coordinators, like that of our Product Lead and former site coordinator, Emma. This is what makes us different: We don't just solve problems. We’ve been the ones facing them. 

Emma walked us through her typical day as a site coordinator, shedding light on the pressures site coordinators face and where support matters most.

A Typical Day at a Research Site

Morning: Context Switching and Protocol Complexity

“When I was a site coordinator, I’d start the morning prepping for patient visits, only to get pulled into IRB submissions, missed lab shipments, or helping a rightfully frustrated participant with something like resetting their PIN to check their card balance. The frequent context switching was stressful,” Emma recalls.

Mornings often begin with a meeting to review study progress, strategize patient recruitment, and prepare for patient visits. But plans rarely unfold as expected. Emma remembers days filled with last-minute changes and participant issues, layered on top of a full visit schedule.

“One day, a mom called me crying. I’d been out, and the person covering for me forgot to send pre-visit instructions for her child’s glucose test, which included a certain amount of carbs to eat for 3 days before. She couldn’t remember what her child ate the day prior, which was day 1. She was terrified the missed steps would invalidate the results. I was simultaneously chasing down a payment issue with another participant at a university study, on top of managing site visits. Communication broke down and we lost their trust.”

For site staff, these moments are exhausting, as they struggle balancing a deep sense of care for patients with a mounting list of tasks and very limited bandwidth.

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Mid-Morning: Patient Needs Meet System Limits

As participants arrive, coordinators shift to focus on visits, conducting assessments, managing expectations, and documenting it all meticulously. But participants deal with life’s everyday challenges like anyone else–such as travel hiccups–and sites don’t always feel equipped to support them efficiently, which impacts trust and satisfaction. 

“We’d have participants try to change appointments at the last minute, or call confused about their payment or how to access it. The worst part was not being able to help quickly or clearly because we had different systems across different studies.”

This emotional labor is rarely acknowledged, but essential for participant retention:

“Site coordinators and the connection they form with participants dictate how well a participant feels heard. Not having a site coordinator with the time and emotional energy to give to participants will be the biggest cause for those participants dropping out of a trial. I don’t think enough sponsors realize this”, says Emma.   

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Afternoon: Admin Overload

After participant visits, the focus shifts to documentation, regulatory follow-up, and planning. But for many site teams, each study requires toggling between tools, protocols, and sponsor requirements.

“Every trial had a different process and different systems. One day I’d be entering visit data into one portal and uploading receipts for that same day into a completely separate system. It was inefficient, especially when you're multitasking across multiple studies,” said Emma.

This data entry happens simultaneously with addressing unexpected participant issues and ad hoc requests from trial sponsors. These daily friction points contribute to site staff burnout and, ultimately, to higher staff turnaround. According to a report from the 2024 SCRS Global Summit, over a quarter (28%) of sites have seen an increase in turnover in the past 2 years, further emphasizing the need to take action to reduce burnout.

But friction doesn’t just cause burnout–it directly impacts trial outcomes:

• Admin overload reduces time for patient care and increases the chance for errors
• Participant confusion about compensation, logistics, or communication leads to dropout
• Trust is lost when payment issues or delays aren’t addressed quickly or clearly

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Mural Link: Built for the Realities of Site Work

We created Mural Link with a simple goal: make site coordinators' lives easier and participants’ experiences smoother. That means intuitive workflows, flexible payment options, and built-in communication tools, all with minimal lift for already overwhelmed teams.

Emma’s lived experience was instrumental in the development of Mural Link:

“We’ve tried to give coordinators everything they need in one place, across all their studies. This includes multiple easy payment methods for participants, aggregating all of their tasks on one screen since they work on different trials daily, easy-to-use reminders, and flexible tools that don’t create extra work or redundant data entry.”

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Flexible, fast participant payments

• Sites can pay participants in seconds through Mural Link, using 10+ payment methods, including PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, direct bank transfer, or our fee-free prepaid card.
• Participants can choose which payment method works for them, so no more lost checks or forgotten balances.

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Full payment and tax management ownership

• Mural Link does more than facilitate payments–we also help manage them. We work with sponsors to structure their payment model between direct pay, frontpay, reimbursements, and stipends, and are fully responsible for managing and tracking those payments.
• Given this role, Mural Health is the payor for the trials it supports. This not only means we help manage tax reporting, but we take full ownership over the process, completely removing this burden from the sites.

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Built-in appointment reminders & messaging

• Optional visit reminders prevent missed prep steps and late arrivals.
• Secure messaging keeps communication clear and timely without requiring external tools.

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“If we’d had the ability to send automatic visit instructions, that glucose test issue I had never would have happened. And being able to confirm payment status without relying on a university finance department would have saved hours.”

— Emma

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Designed to minimize redundancy

• No duplicate data entry. We integrate with your workflow.
• Tasks and actions are centralized across trials.
• Sites control how and when features like reminders are used.

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Support That Goes Above And Beyond

Courtney Collins, Mural Health’s VP of Customer Success, has been providing customer support for participant management solutions for the past 13 years. She has personally helped over 100 trials get from startup to completion, and has designed the Mural Health support model to be far superior to what she has seen in the past.

“We have sites we support directly as customers, and we also support sites that are part of trials run by sponsors or CROs. They reach out to us the most about payment setup, payment status on behalf of a participant, and login questions. No matter who’s asking, our goal is the same: solve it fast, and with as much kindness and understanding as we can,” says Courtney.

When one site recently needed to pay a participant for an unscheduled visit that wasn’t already set up as part of the trial’s configuration, Mural Health’s support team walked them through two solutions.

“They were able to get the participant paid that day. We always give sites options, explain the ‘why,’ and make sure they feel confident using the platform,” Courtney explains.

This blend of professionalism and partnership is what sets us apart.

“Our team knows that a successful, happy site leads to a better experience for the participant, so we always keep that in the back of our minds when supporting them,” says Courtney. “We actively listen to their questions and concerns, tailor our communication to specifically address their needs, and strive to be a supportive partner, knowing they are likely juggling several tasks at once. One coordinator told us, ‘If I could give you a hug through the screen, I would!’ That’s the level of support we aim for.”

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Why Sites Choose Mural Health

“I have been in clinical research for over a decade, and your company is the first I’ve worked with that not only was able to proactively identify this issue, but provide such a high level of support and insight on how to resolve it. You are the best team I have worked with in this space and go above and beyond for your customers.”

“Mural Link is making our lives so much easier.”

“Your tool is the best.”

These are a few examples of what customers say about working with us, because at Mural Health, we remember that clinical research depends on people—the participants who show up, and the coordinators who keep the trial running. And we believe that both deserve better. We’re not just here to offer software. We’re here to reduce your burden, eliminate redundant admin, and give sites the tools to be the trusted, compassionate presence participants rely on. When site staff feel supported, trials thrive, and participants feel seen.

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“In the first week using Mural Link, I want sites to feel like the platform just works. That participants are happily surprised by the flexibility. And that they don’t need to change their whole workflow to get real results.”

— Emma Eikermann, former site coordinator and Product Manager at Mural Health

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If you would like to learn how Mural Health can support your next trial please get in touch with us here