The Patient Centricity & Engagement Conference on 29 January provided challenge and thinking space for our Director Maxine Smith to reflect on how we as an industry can get better at focusing on the patient. The conference offered cutting-edge insight from global pharmaceutical brands, as they revealed the secrets to driving patient centricity and engagement with meaningful patient involvement.
Panel members, presenters, and participants from across patient organisations, healthcare systems, industry, and agencies worked together through the conference to explore themes such as patient support emerging from COVID, what pharma is still not getting right, patient centricity in clinical trials, the Hero Journey, tools for better engagement plus much more. All of these themes had a common goal – to embed patients at the heart of decision making with actionable patient strategies.
One of the lasting messages that resonated, is that we need to encourage pharma to move beyond trying to be ‘patient-centred’ to being ‘person-centred’. So how can we achieve this? Here we have summarised some of the key ways to keep improving our approach:
1. SIMPLICITY
Keep trying to simplify the language we use – we are still making all our communications with patients too complicated.
2. CURIOSITY
Ask very naive, basic questions and don’t assume the answer.
3. PERSON-CENTRED
Make patient education materials user led – make them person-centred not drug-centred.
4. BUREAUCRACY
Work out how the burden of the necessary paperwork and process can sit with us and not be the barrier for patients and patient groups to work with us.
5. CONVENIENCE
Think about the channels we are using – are they for our patient’s convenience or are they really for our convenience?
6. MANNERS
Circle back to share how learning from patients or patient groups has been used and to thank them – it still doesn’t happen often enough.
7. LONGEVITY
Work to develop longer, more meaningful relationships with patient groups to better enable collaborative working and co-creation to solve problems.
The quote that will remain with us from the conference came from Sue Smith from Origins:
We would like to say a big thank you to all the presenting and panel teams – it was a truly valuable conference!
We will continue to utilise cutting-edge insight and innovative ways of thinking to inspire our clients to deliver exceptional healthcare performance, and ultimately provide better patient outcomes.
Contact us via email office@uptakestrategies.com, to find out how we could help you ensure the ‘person’ is at the centre of your projects spanning across Planning, Capability, Launch, and Medical Affairs.
