The Clinical Trial Recruitment Dashboard Every Site Should Have

A recruitment dashboard is not a vanity report — it is a decision-support tool that tells you each Monday what is working, what is failing, and what needs to change before the situation gets expensive. Most sites’ current “dashboard” is a monthly email to the sponsor with current enrollment count. That is a status report, not a management tool. This guide builds the eight-metric dashboard that clinical research sites actually need, in Google Looker Studio for free, in under two hours.

The Eight Metrics That Belong on Every Recruitment Dashboard

Metric 1: Weekly Inquiry Volume by Channel

How many new inquiries arrived this week, broken down by source (Google Ads, Facebook, organic search, physician referral, other). The channel breakdown tells you where budget is producing results and where it is not — immediately, not at month-end.

Metric 2: Inquiry-to-Pre-Screen Rate

Of this week’s inquiries, what percentage were pre-screened (phone or AI)? Below 60% indicates a follow-up lag problem — inquiries are not being contacted promptly enough to convert to a pre-screen interaction.

Metric 3: Pre-Screen Pass Rate

Of pre-screened patients, what percentage passed basic eligibility? Track this weekly. A sudden drop signals that a recent advertising campaign is reaching the wrong population — allowing immediate corrective action before the wrong population floods your screen visit calendar.

Metric 4: Screen-to-Enroll Rate

Of patients who attended a full screening visit, what percentage enrolled? Below 30% is a red flag — either your pre-screening is too permissive (passing ineligible patients to screening) or there is a conversion problem at the visit level (patients are not being motivated to enroll).

Metric 5: Enrollment Velocity vs. Target

Current enrollment rate per week vs. required rate to meet protocol timeline. This is the forward-looking metric: if your target is 40 patients in 24 weeks and you have enrolled 8 in 8 weeks (1 per week), but you need 1.67 per week, you are 40% behind pace and need to act now — not at week 20.

Metric 6: Screen Failure Reason Distribution

Categorize every screen failure by the disqualifying criterion. Track the top 3 reasons weekly. If one reason suddenly spikes, your targeting has shifted — a specific campaign is reaching the wrong population for that criterion.

Metric 7: Cost-Per-Inquiry by Channel

Ad spend per channel ÷ inquiries from that channel. Updated weekly from your ad platform reports. The highest cost-per-inquiry channels are candidates for budget reallocation — unless their downstream conversion rates justify the higher acquisition cost.

Metric 8: Cost-Per-Enrolled Patient (Running Total)

Total recruitment spend to date ÷ total enrolled patients to date. This is your headline ROI metric. Track it weekly so you can see whether it is improving or deteriorating as your enrollment campaign matures.

Building the Dashboard in Google Looker Studio (Free)

1. Go to lookerstudio.google.com. Sign in with Google. Click “Create” → “Report.”
2. Connect your data source: if your tracking data is in Google Sheets, connect directly via “Google Sheets” connector. If from Google Ads, connect via the native Google Ads connector.
3. Add a chart for each of the eight metrics. Scorecards work best for single numbers (velocity, rates). Bar charts work best for channel comparisons. Line charts work best for trend tracking over time.
4. Set a date range control that defaults to “Last 7 days” so the dashboard shows current-week data by default.
5. Share the dashboard link with your PI and study coordinator team. Set it as the first tab they open on Monday mornings.

48-Hour Action List

1. Hour 1: Open Google Looker Studio. Create a blank report. Connect your Google Sheets tracking spreadsheet as the data source.
2. Hour 2: Build scorecards for Metrics 5 and 8 (enrollment velocity and cost-per-enrolled) — the two most decision-critical numbers. Add a bar chart for Metric 7 (cost-per-inquiry by channel).
3. Hour 3: Add the remaining five metrics as scorecards or charts. Use color-coding: green for on-target values, yellow for approaching threshold, red for off-target. Looker Studio supports conditional formatting in scorecard elements.
4. Day 2: Share the dashboard with your team. Run a 20-minute walkthrough to explain what each metric means and what action to take when any metric moves into red. Update the underlying Google Sheet with this week’s data. Monday reviews become the mechanism that makes the dashboard a management tool rather than a wall decoration.