With special thanks to Emma Reigel from EngagedMedia (a division of Aptus Health) who kindly shares this post.
There are four ways pharmaceutical companies can make money: developing new products, having physicians write more scripts for existing products, raising prices, and lastly—getting patients to adhere to their prescribed therapies.
A recent report released by eyeforpharma and SCIO health analytics titled “Addressing Adherence by Strengthening the Provider/Patient Relationship” offers new insights into patient adherence, highlighting opportunities for pharma to take a more patient-centered approach. Let’s take a look at some of the findings.
The Power of Patient Insights
Findings from the report suggest that pharma leaders are becoming more open to gaining a deeper understanding of patients’ lives and motivations. In fact, 35% of pharma marketers surveyed believe that “knowing patients’ socioeconomic and behavioral profiles better” is key to improving adherence. With insights like these in hand, pharma marketers can determine which segments can be impacted most, and how.
Through our EngagedPatient™ platform, we have the privilege of literally being in the pockets of millions of patients, gaining insights every day on how they engage with providers, pharmacies, and the prescription process. This guides our approach to engaging people using different messages, timing, sequencing, capabilities, style, and more.
This data-driven approach to addressing patients’ wants and needs also led us to develop two of our latest technologies– geolocation alerts and push notifications based on digital wallet usage, both of which stemmed from our analysis of digital wallet usage data. Just 18 months later, they are now the most-requested modules to our new programs.
The Patient-Pharma Trust Gap
Bridging the trust gap between patient and pharma can be a real challenge, and it is directly related to patient adherence—especially for younger populations. Technologies that fit into patients’ daily lives and offer real value can address these findings.
Based on the millions of patients who have engaged in our mobile messaging programs, we’ve seen that offering easy access to a savings program, timely reminders, and personalized prescription support provides a level of service that builds patient satisfaction, adherence, and even brand loyalty.
But it’s not just about the tangible benefits – it’s also about helping people navigate what can be a confusing system when things don’t go as planned. Patients in our client programs are more informed about their prescription process than they’ve ever been before – and in every communication, we position our client’s brand as the hero that’s providing a higher level of service, intelligence, and convenience to patients.
Beyond technology, the report also recognizes that pharmacists have a potentially important role in patients’ medical lives. Given their ability to objectively inform patients of adherence knowledge and drug information, they can be influential in supporting patient decision-making. It will be interesting to see how pharma leverages the pharmacist perspective as part of their patient support programs.
Next Steps in Adherence Solutions
The report also points to the fact that as more payers are putting pressure on pharma for outcomes-based reimbursement models, this will force the industry to incorporate adherence as a companion package to conventional treatments.
Patient engagement channels that have been proven to deliver adherence results can also be used to communicate about other aspects of a therapy. For example, our mobile programs already include real-time personalized messages based on an individual’s unique situation and pharmacy claim data, including support such as multimedia usage tips or insurance coverage assistance. It’s easy to imagine how we could use that same channel to provide additional guidance that supports better health outcomes.
The more our industry collectively learns about patients’ attitudes and behaviors—and the more willing and able the industry is to apply these insights to meaningful patient support—the greater opportunity pharma has to make a dent in non-adherence and help people better manage their overall health.
Join us in San Diego in May at the 2020 BioPharma eMarketing Summit. Be a part of the digital health movement and join a rapidly expanding network of leading digital marketing pioneers willing to share their own digital strategies that have transformed their campaigns and organization’s overall success in a unique, interactive, engaging 3-day summit!
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