Panel Member Verification Manual
What would happen if someone used your professional identity as a doctor or healthcare professional to participate in research for their own financial gain? What if the research results were then used to make informed decisions about medical treatments, patient care, and healthcare needs? It is vital for every research panel to safeguard their panel members’ personal information, the collected data, and the quality of their research.
Maintaining rigorous cybersecurity protocols, adopting a vigilant stance in protecting sensitive information, and safeguarding the quality of research data are indispensable actions to ensure the reliability of healthcare services and patient safety. As a leading healthcare market research company, we are taking all possible measures to ensure this is achieved. One of which is panel member verification.
Here’s how and why our panel member verification is crucial:
Why do Members Need to be Verified?
Panel member verification in our market research panel is crucial for maintaining the integrity, accuracy, and reliability of the research process and its outcomes. This is particularly important as the results of these market research studies drive healthcare decisions and future developments.
Here are five reasons to why we verify our panel members:
- Accuracy and Reliability: Verification ensures the panel members are who they claim to be, providing credibility to their responses. This is crucial in sectors like healthcare, where expert opinions significantly impact product development, policy-making, and patient care strategies.
- Fraud and Identity Theft Prevention: Verification helps in preventing fraudulent activities. It ensures participants cannot falsely claim identities or qualifications for incentives, thereby protecting healthcare professionals from identity theft and ensuring reliable research outcomes.
- Quality of Data: Verified members contribute to the high quality of research data. Knowing that responses come from qualified and genuine participants helps in making informed decisions based on the research findings.
- Targeted Insights: In market research, especially in specialised fields like healthcare, it’s essential to gather data from specific demographics or professionals. Panel member verification ensures the insights are coming from the right source, making the research more targeted and relevant.
- Compliance and Ethics: Especially in healthcare, where sensitive information and impactful decisions are involved, compliance with legal and ethical standards is paramount. Panel member verification supports adherence to these standards by ensuring that only authorised individuals have access to sensitive questions or data.
How Does the Panel Member Verification Work?
Every time a healthcare professional wishes to register with our panel, they must undergo a verification process. The process includes 5 steps as outlined below and takes about 10 minutes. To verify your identity as part of the registration process, we use a recognised verification tool called Yoti, which is widely adopted and regularly used within the British healthcare system.
Yoti is a digital application that enables you to securely confirm your identity and later helps us ensure safer future payment transactions. Your personal data is kept completely secure, and Yoti will delete your data 180 days after the verification process is complete. For further details on how Yoti protects your data, please refer to their privacy policy.
As an panel member, your personal information and identity are confidential and protected at all times through SLL encryption and never shared with anyone.
The 5 Step Verification Process Includes:
- Fill in personal details
Fill in your personal details such as name, contact details, country, and profession. In step 1 and 2, we recommend you have your identity card, and medical license for physicians, at hand to go through the verification process even quicker. If your residential address and your work address are in two different countries, please make sure to fill in the address where you work.
- Fill in professional details.
Fill in your professional detailed and verify them. You’re able to go through this step without submitting your medical licence number (as a physician) or profession documentation and do it at a later stage. However, we recommend you provide it directly, as you won’t be able to access paid surveys until this has been provided.
- Verify your phone number
Verify your phone number by placing in the verification code sent to your mobile. Make sure the number you use is correct and accessible to you.
- Confirm your identity with Yoti
Confirm your identity using Yoti. You will have a choice to skip this step and confirm your identity later. However, we recommend you do it directly, as the verification will take longer and you won’t be able to access paid surveys until this has been provided.
- Fill in your address
Fill in your address. If your residential address and your work address are in two different countries, please make sure to fill in the address where you work.
When you complete the registration, it will take a few days for us to go through the verifications and verify your identity and profession. In the meantime, please do the three following steps in order to gain access, receive study invitations, and get paid for completing surveys.
- Confirm your email address by clicking on the link sent to your email
- Start building your Profile so we can match you with relevant paid studies
- Participate in market research studies and get paid via your Digital Wallet.
Verification and Data Quality Impact on Patient Safety
If someone were to misuse a healthcare professional’s identity for conducting research, the repercussions could extend far beyond the individual, affecting entire healthcare organisations and patient safety. Life science organisations rely heavily on accurate and ethical research to inform their decisions regarding the development and distribution of medical products and services. If the foundation of these decisions is corrupted by bad data, the integrity of medical products and services could be compromised.
The consequences of decisions made on the back of bad data can be severe. Healthcare organisations could unknowingly invest in ineffective medical treatments, allocate resources inefficiently, or adopt healthcare practices that do not align with the needs of patients and healthcare professionals. Not only would valuable time and resources be wasted, but it can also jeopardise the trust placed in these institutions by the public and the medical community.
At the heart of this issue are patient safety and outcomes. Medical treatments and healthcare services informed by compromised data can lead to ineffective treatment plans, exposing patients to unnecessary risks without the promise of effective outcomes.
The ripple effects of decisions influenced by identity theft or data breaches underscore the critical need for vigilance in verifying the authenticity and integrity of panel members conducting market research. To prevent this from happening, we not only apply panel member verification but also take several security measures to prevent this from happening.
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