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Two Key Questions About Patient Experience in 2020
COVID-19 is impacting how patients see their doctor, get medications, receive information, and much more. How else will the patient experience change because of the pandemic? And what can pharma companies offer patients to help improve this revamped healthcare experience?
In the post-COVID world, continuing telehealth sessions as an alternative for office visits is a definite need. While virtual visits may be decreasing new medication starts for some, they’ve also led to patients focusing on taking their current medications as prescribed.
For example, we’ve seen late adopters of technology now enthusiastically tracking their symptoms—and HCPs encouraging that data collection to help monitor health status. Patients focusing on adherent behaviors, whether conscious or subconscious, is a positive outcome of the pandemic for both the patients and the HCPs managing their treatment.
At GSK, we’ve embraced the power of virtual engagement by expanding our Nurse Ambassador patient support program. We are activating and leveraging first-party data to better support patients at key points in time. Prior to COVID-19, we identified the need to shift patient engagement to a more personalized approach, and we are currently testing those experiences to understand their effectiveness.
As we look toward the future, armed with the knowledge of how COVID-19 is reshaping our environment, we’ll continue to use these learnings to provide a more dynamic engagement experience with an emphasis on nurse and telehealth support.
Yael Jones
Marketing Effectiveness Lead, Customer Experience Digital Innovation
GSK
The pandemic is creating a need for immediate gratification related to our health and wellness in three key ways.
1. HCPs “on call:” We’re all shifting from in-person to virtual and HCPs are not immune. HIPAA-compliant tools must be created to support this, much like Doximity’s app that enables HCPs to call patients anonymously on their own cell phones.
2. Alternative sites of care: The challenges of visiting one’s doctor is accelerating the opportunity for retail care sites such as CVS’s Health Hubs and Walmart Health. Pharma must incorporate these alternate sites into their marketing by targeting different types of providers (pharmacists, NPs/ PAs) and optimizing materials for these locales (e.g., mobile geofencing vs. waiting room brochures).
3. Bite-sized health lessons: With health front and center there is a renewed focus on educating patients. However, this requires a shift—rather than large DTC campaigns, we must take a content marketing approach focused in digital and social channels. This will challenge pharma because today’s legal and regulatory process is not built to support this type of nimble work. Additionally, this content may not always be directly related to the brand, nor should it if we want patients to embrace it and follow us on social channels.
Lisa Varshney
EVP, Strategic Capabilities Heartbeat lisa.varshney@ weareheartbeat.com
It’s no surprise that patient engagement is going to increasingly take place virtually. Much of the conversation up until now has been about introducing patients to new technology that will connect them with their HCP. Moving forward, the conversation must shift
to helping them learn to leverage these technologies to get the most out of them, as well as creating programs that make accessing a therapy easier.
In some cases, brands have the opportunity to connect them directly with a brand-educated HCP via telemedicine for a diagnosis and appropriate treatment. In other cases, brands can help empower patients with the information they need to educate their chosen HCP. Developing condition- specific tool kits designed to better prepare patients for what information the doctor will need is a way to make a virtual visit more productive for everyone involved.
In addition, you are going to see companies beginning to offer more resources by way of step-by-step instructions, including videos, on their websites for how patients can perform more at-home tests in conjunction with their doctor to determine optimal care. These changes to the patient experience bring more opportunity for patient empowerment and offer patients more control over their own health journey.
Michelle Petroff
Head of Fingerpaint’s Conshohocken Office mpetroff@fingerpaint.com
44 pm360 magazine / September 2020