For years, researchers have been moving towards decentralized clinical trials (DCTs), and in a matter of months, COVID-19 changed the trajectory. Clinical operations teams and investigator sites around the world rose to the challenge and worked quickly to deploy new tactics to serve their study participants. The resulting reward is that DCTs, which can be leveraged smartly to reduce participant burden and improve recruitment and retention, are now becoming more widely adopted in design considerations. But rewards bring about new risks and challenges, and DCTs create new concerns for monitoring participant safety. Dario Lirio – Senior Director, LifeSphere Clinical at ArisGlobal – analyzes the risks and rewards of DCTs.