Page 6 – Phreesia Network Solutions

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3 ways to optimize your omnichannel strategy

By Phreesia Network Solutions

An omnichannel media strategy is crucial for meeting patients where they are. But with all of the digital innovations available today, how do you determine the best ways to maximize your approach?

An omnichannel media strategy is crucial for meeting patients where they are with relevant health content that empowers them to take a more active role in their care. But with all of the digital innovations available today, how do you determine the best ways to curate your media mix, effectively support patients at different moments in their journey and maximize an omnichannel approach?

At MediaPost’s 2023 Brand Insider Summit: Pharma & Health, industry experts shared ways to make the most out of their omnichannel strategy. Here are three takeaways from their remarks.

1. Evaluate “patient centricity”

“Patient centricity” has become somewhat of a buzzword across the industry, which has created new challenges for healthcare-media professionals. At the conference’s opening session, Steve Smith, MediaPost’s VP and Editorial Director of Events, discussed how overuse of the phrase has begun to convolute its meaning.

Intended as an empathetic, authentic approach to care with the end user in mind, the concept of patient centricity is meant to remind healthcare media to place patients at the center of every engagement. Certainly, stakeholders should continue to pursue that goal and the positive outcomes it drives for patients. But it’s important to critically examine how the term is invoked and to hold companies accountable for following through on the “patient-centric” offerings they promote. To find a digital-media partner that truly keeps patients at the center of its efforts, brands need to pay close attention to factors such as how consent-focused a channel is for its end users, as well as its ability to support a continuum of important patient behavioral changes.

2. Find and leverage patient testimonials

Brands are increasingly focused on elevating the patient voice through testimonials, because patients want to see stories about individuals from similar backgrounds or who have overcome related health challenges. To meaningfully connect with the right populations, brands can get to know both patients who have had negative as well as positive experiences with their products. Understanding and incorporating their feedback creates opportunities to improve those products for all end users.

However, getting testimonials from patients is a complicated process, since it can be difficult to find those who have had the specific experiences you want to learn more about. Engaging clinically relevant patients at the point of care is a new way to gather authentic testimonials from highly qualified, niche audiences—and not just those who are already deeply engaged with the brand through advocacy groups or who come from similar demographics.

3. Prioritize representation and customize content for specific channels

Creating content that speaks to a diverse range of patients is key to expanding the impact of your messaging. And for content to resonate with specific patient groups, it’s vital that they feel represented. This is another case when patient testimonials can be especially powerful. If you’re trying to improve sentiment or change a behavior among a specific audience, highlighting authentic patient stories will go a long way toward driving action within that larger community.

In addition, crafting messages that resonate with audiences based on their state of mind when they see them is equally as important as considering their demographics and life experiences. In his keynote session on healthcare consumers’ demand for more personalization, Ryan Gang, Head of Social and Search Buying at Bayer, explained that the industry is no longer making ads, but rather creating content that can serve as either entertainment or education. Those distinctions are most often based on the channel: For example, when looking at a platform such as TikTok, it’s important to make entertaining content that also can function as an ad, since most patients are viewing it during their leisure time.

By contrast, channels such as the point of care can help you reach patients with educational messaging when they’re in a healthcare state of mind. Understanding the types of content that patients want to see based on where they view it can help brands make appropriate strategic decisions about which creative elements to incorporate into messaging to best support your brand-conversion goals.

Learn how Phreesia can help you reach and activate relevant patients by delivering tailored content at the right moments in their healthcare journey.

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4 ways to overcome vaccination barriers and increase uptake

By Phreesia Network Solutions

Vaccine hesitancy has always posed challenges to uptake. But today, new hurdles are impacting patient decision-making in unprecedented ways.

Vaccine hesitancy is as old as vaccines themselves, but it presents itself differently today. Digital platforms have changed how people access information, and in a data-rich world, anyone can find a study to confirm their bias. But even as technology has created new obstacles to discerning factual information, it also offers ways to help people identify misinformation—and support to ensure that individuals who want to receive vaccines can do so.

Phreesia recently hosted a webinar to discuss the drivers of and responses to vaccine hesitancy, with a particular focus on the roles of mistrust, inconvenience and complacency in vaccination avoidance. With a recent Phreesia survey finding that nearly three-quarters of respondents were either worried or uncertain about the side effects of vaccines, there is a pressing need to find ways to reassure patients and address other barriers to immunization uptake. Read on to learn four techniques for increasing vaccine adoption from a few of our Phreesia experts.

1. Listen to patients

Although the public’s overall trust in experts has eroded, patients continue to value their physician’s input, as well as that of other healthcare professionals, even when they have doubts about vaccines. Alicia Cowley, MD, MBA, Director of Clinical Content at Phreesia, starts immunization conversations with her patients assuming they are ready to accept vaccines and pivots if they are hesitant or decline. The priority then shifts to understanding that patient’s thinking.

“We need to find out what they’ve heard, what they’ve read and start by answering their questions,” Dr. Cowley advised. “There is a technique that has become increasingly popular called motivational interviewing. That can help with really drilling into what the questions are and respectfully having a conversation. We should be encouraging questions, having an open dialogue and really approaching the individual who’s having mixed feelings from a place of empathy.”

2. Prebunk to prevent hesitancy

While healthcare professionals can allay concerns about vaccines, the ultimate goal is to keep patients from developing those concerns in the first place. Many digital platforms are working to tackle that problem by identifying and calling out vaccine misinformation. Yet, as Thea Briggs, Director of Strategy at Phreesia, pointed out, labeling an anti-vaccination post as misinformation is unlikely to change the mind of a person with established views on vaccines.¹ Rather, the focus should be on helping patients recognize mis- and disinformation before they are exposed to a particular argument or post.

Briggs highlighted “prebunking”—a strategy that proactively teaches the public what mis- and disinformation can look like. It’s a newer technique, but its based on the well-established inoculation theory that has long been used in health promotion, generally—and early results in the vaccine space look promising,² she said.

“It’s not about contrasting fact for fact,” Briggs explained. “It’s about getting folks to think critically, from an information-literacy perspective, about what types of information look good and what they should think twice about.”

Jai Seth, Senior Research Manager at Phreesia, further framed the concept of prebunking as a scalable approach to tackling vaccine hesitancy. “There isn’t enough time to reactively address individual and hyperspecific [vaccine] claims that may be untrue or at least misleading,” Seth said. He added that even if there was time to investigate every such claim, the vast amount of conflicting evidence available to consumers means that healthcare providers need to teach patients how to distinguish between reliable and unreliable data.

3. Offer self-scheduling

It’s hard to convince people to change their views, and as such, it will take time for vaccine mis- and disinformation counterefforts to translate into increased immunization uptake. But there are additional hurdles to clear. Stakeholders also need to address patient perceptions that getting vaccinated is inconvenient and difficult and ensure that everyone who needs and wants a vaccine can easily get one. Self-scheduling and messaging reminders can address this particular vaccination barrier.

“There are so many people who have a hard time calling to get an appointment, so they need to be able to do that on their own time and find [a time] that works for them,” Dr. Cowley said. “Text messaging is the best way for recall messaging. Everyone has a phone on them at all times. We can send messages in a way that people see them, no matter what they’re doing, whether they’re at work or at leisure.”

4. Deliver segmented messages

The effectiveness of that communication, however, depends on getting the right messages to the right patients. And providers have learned from experience that sending the same pro-immunization message to everyone in their database fails to sufficiently increase vaccination rates in some of the communities within their service area.

“Broad spread [vaccine promotion] isn’t working well enough,” Briggs said, pointing to the persistent disparities in vaccine adoption rates across different communities. “Segmentation can support different populations where the main messaging—the middle of the bell-curve messaging—just isn’t having the effect you want to have. That can be historically disadvantaged groups, that can be groups that have different subjective interpretations. Sometimes it’s a different piece of information that’s going to help one cohort versus another.”

Click here to watch the webinar replay and learn more about how Phreesia’s patient engagement platform can help you reach patients with vaccine education.

References

1 “Effects of fact-checking social media vaccine misinformation on attitudes toward vaccines,” ScienceDirect, 2021.
2 “Prebunking interventions based on ‘inoculation’ theory can reduce susceptibility to misinformation across cultures,” Misinformation Review, 2020.

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Telehealth continues to transform the point of care. Here’s how

By Phreesia Network Solutions

Phreesia survey data shows that patients have enduring positive sentiment around telehealth appointments, as the medium continues to transform the point of care.

The pandemic has permanently changed care delivery in many ways. Telehealth, a small part of the mix before COVID-19, became essential as the virus forced shutdowns and limited face-to-face interactions. But the reopening of doctors’ offices revealed something: Many patients like telehealth and want to retain the flexibility to remotely see physicians. And that emerging preference necessitates a shift in the way point-of-care resources are delivered.

Phreesia generated insights into the future of telehealth by surveying nearly 2,000 patients as they checked in for their doctors’ appointments in August and September 2022. The survey revealed patients’ enduring positive sentiment around telehealth appointments and showed four ways the medium continues to transform the point of care.

1. Telehealth use remains higher than it was before the pandemic

Predictably, telehealth’s share of all medical appointments has fallen from its pandemic-driven peak, but unlike some of the changes that defined 2020, it has remained relevant as the crisis has eased. More than one-third (36%) of surveyed patients reported having had a virtual healthcare visit in the past six months. And most (84%) of those patients said they are at least somewhat likely to have a virtual healthcare visit in the coming year.

“Even as things stabilized and in-person visits began to climb back to pre-pandemic levels, telehealth visits have remained an important part of the care journey, which showed a shift in the traditional paradigm,” notes Tim Noone, Senior Vice President Media at CMI Media Group.

He adds that, while some conditions will likely always require in-person consultation, virtual visits are viable for many diagnoses and routine checkups, “leading to more frequent health monitoring and improved patient adherence,” he says.

2. Many patients expect to keep using telehealth

The persistence of telehealth’s post-pandemic popularity reflects many patients’ preference for virtual visits for some types of appointments. As Noone explains, what was initially a pandemic-enforced requirement became more of a preference for patients. He notes telehealth’s accessibility and timeliness, pointing out that virtual visits help remove the travel burden many patients face in going to see their doctor, while simultaneously cutting typical in-person wait times.

Patient comfort is another key factor. “The ability to connect with the provider from home removes patient anxiety related to health concerns during rises in COVID or influenza cases, and it’s created a safe space for those seeking mental-health counseling,” Noone explains.

His comments are supported by Phreesia’s survey data. When asked why they expected to schedule a virtual care visit in the future, patients cited flexibility, the elimination of travel time and the speed of arranging telehealth appointments as their top three motivators, ranking greater comfort discussing health issues with their doctor as their fourth most-common reason for planning a future telehealth appointment. The survey also found that more than 70% of recent telehealth users feel very or extremely comfortable asking for a new prescription or bringing up a new health issue during a virtual visit.

3. Expanding the point of care changes campaigns

The emergence of telehealth as a significant, ongoing player in care delivery requires an industry response. In telehealth interactions, the point of care moves from the doctor’s office to the virtual realm, which means that patients won’t necessarily see materials that only appear in physical office waiting rooms.

Expanding to reach patients in what Noone calls “the pivotal moments leading up to consultation” can help ensure that campaigns still hit their mark. Previously, those pivotal moments only happened in the clinician’s office, but now they also happen online. In both settings, the moments are a final, critical opportunity to shape the patient-provider conversation.

“I really think this ‘nudge’ is what may empower patients to inquire about a new treatment option or to switch [treatments],” Noone says. “Whether that’s an extension of general-market consumer messaging, or a quick informative callout around efficacy or safety or savings, that could really be the last touch that’s needed to facilitate that discussion and drive a positive outcome.”

4. Virtual appointments unlock new opportunities

The shift from physical to digital care settings opens up new messaging and patient-education possibilities. Noone cites successful examples of actioning telehealth visits off brand websites, and in the process, removing barriers to their inquiries into potentially relevant medications. That approach can facilitate patient-physician conversations based on what patients learn about their condition or treatment through virtual campaigns.

In addition, telehealth campaign measurement has improved significantly, Noone notes, and having data to back up the spend has spurred additional investment. Those revamped capabilities have helped realize telehealth’s impact, providing confidence in a previously untested medium.

“Before, it was a little uncertain how performance would pan out, as it was essentially a new channel for promotional purposes,” Noone says. “But at this point in time, [measurement] is more sophisticated, and you’re really able to understand that return on investment.”

Find out how Phreesia Network Solutions’ digital engagement platform can help you reach more patients with education and support resources before, during and after their telehealth appointments.

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4 reasons to incorporate point of care at the start of media planning

By Phreesia Network Solutions

Modern omnichannel campaigns require the coordination of a multitude of media, but one thing is clear: Point of care is too important to be an afterthought.

Modern omnichannel campaigns require the coordination of a multitude of materials and media, and teams must prioritize their resources amid that complexity. But one thing is clear: Point of care is too important to be an afterthought, and teams that include the channel in their initial planning will be best positioned to help patients and drive prescriptions.

At April’s PHM HealthFront event, Sarah Bast, Publicis Health Media EVP, Investment Marketplace, made the case for taking a Day-1 approach to point of care. When asked in conversation with Jordan Osborne, Phreesia Lead Client Experience Manager, what advice she would give people planning point-of-care campaigns, Bast emphasized starting early and explained what that means in practice.

“You should think about point of care from the start,” Bast said. “When we’re doing TV shoots, we’re now thinking about digital. Let’s think about point of care as well. Let’s make sure that we’re adding on to those campaigns and talking about what’s happening in the moment.”

Here are four reasons to follow Bast’s advice and incorporate point of care into the earliest stages of media planning.

1. Point of care offers an opportunity to empower patients

The point of care is a critical moment in the care journey. For a brief window, patients are focused on their health and minutes away from having a conversation that may influence what their healthcare provider (HCP) prescribes. The messages that companies deliver at the point of care can help patients get what they want out of those provider conversations—and that means teams need to think strategically.

“We really want to make sure we’re empowering [patients] and giving them educational materials,” Bast said. “Even though you made that appointment, you’re really nervous when you’re walking in there. We want to remind patients that they need to ask the questions that they came to get answered.”

2. Patients find the point of care more reliable than other channels

Patients are receptive to the messages they see at the point of care. A 2022 Phreesia survey found that patients consider point of care as more reliable than other channels, and it motivates them to bring up their health concerns with their HCP during their appointment. So it’s vital to maximize the impact of the channel—and that requires early planning.

Among 10,500 patients surveyed by Phreesia, trust in the medical information provided at the point of care was significantly higher (20%) than trust in the health content they saw in print (14%), on social media (10%), on the internet (9%) or on TV (8%). Patients also value information provided at the point of care more highly, with 17% of respondents saying that such messaging is at least “quite a bit” helpful. By comparison, only 13% found print similarly helpful, 10% found social media useful, and TV/streaming services messaging and internet messaging rated even lower at 9% and 7%, respectively.

Bast cited patients’ mindset as one explanation for why point of care is such a trusted channel. “There’s a credibility that comes because it’s in the HCP’s office, that halo effect,” she said.

3. Point of care requires its own knowledge base and experience

Point of care is too specialized for companies to tack it on at the end of campaign planning. Strategies that work in other contexts may fail to drive desired outcomes at the point of care—a setting where brand teams have a narrow window to shape what will happen when the patient meets with their HCP.

Bast underscored the need to devise distinct point-of-care strategies, urging teams to do more than just repurpose a campaign’s existing elements for the channel. Rather, she sees the point of care as an opportunity to provide patients with specific, actionable information such as “The two questions you should ask your physician” or “Five tips for after you leave the doctor’s office.”

4. An empathetic approach is essential

Crafting the right message is particularly important at the point of care—and that can take time. By considering point-of-care strategies early in campaign planning, companies can ensure they deliver an empathetic message that aligns with the patient’s frame of mind at an important and vulnerable moment in their care journey.

“First and foremost, be empathetic,” Bast said. “No matter what life stage [the patient is in], being empathetic in your creative [is important]. The mindset of the patient is really powerful, as well. They’re thinking about interacting with their healthcare professional, so really, there is an opportunity across all the different life stages.”

Find out how Phreesia can help you maximize your point-of-care strategy and engage millions of patients with your brand.

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4 ways to cut through the clutter and reach chronic disease patients

By Phreesia Network Solutions

In today’s digital world, chronic disease patients are inundated with messaging that often doesn’t align with their individual healthcare journey.

Today, patients with chronic diseases have access to far more information about their condition and treatment options than ever before. But faced with such a glut, they often struggle to access the insights they need when they need them.

At April’s DTC National Conference in Boston, industry leaders discussed that challenge in a session titled, “Cutting through the Clutter: Curating Content in Chronic Conditions.” Tara Sheehy, Director of Client Experience at Phreesia, set the scene.

“Patients are inundated with information, and that leaves them feeling more confused than confident in their ability to manage their healthcare. They’re experiencing this one-size-fits-all message,” Sheehy said. “When we talk about personalization, it’s not just about the messaging, but it’s who they are as a full individual. We have to peel back all the layers and truly make it a tailored experience.”

Here are four ways to achieve that goal.

1. Tailor messaging to where patients are in their journey

Patient populations are highly heterogeneous. While a group of individuals may have the same disease, the tools and information each one of them needs will vary depending on where they are in their treatment journey. “Are they recently diagnosed? Or have they been diagnosed for several years and are looking for new treatment options? You need to be mindful of that,” said Christine Mormile, Director, Media at CMI Media Group.

What patients need at each step of their treatment journey varies by disease. For example, Roz Silbershatz Tomás, who leads the Global Libtayo Core Brand Team at Regeneron, works on a drug with an extremely short timeframe from diagnosis to treatment of only two weeks. That means campaigns have a short window in which to educate patients about their disease and the product and ensure they can advocate for themselves at the doctor’s office.

Terry Voltz, Director, Customer Promotion-Consumer at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, uses IBS-C patient behaviors to help inform the strategy for Linzess. Knowing that many people live with IBS-C symptoms like constipation and abdominal pain for months and years before discussing it with their physicians, there is a need for better symptom identification and open dialogue with healthcare professionals.

“When does it get bad enough to go see a doctor? That turning point is when messaging is key,” Voltz said. “For Linzess, it’s a combination of things like linear and streaming TV and [connected TV], as well as more specific items further down in the funnel that are more personalized and more attached to specific moments in the patient journey.”

By understanding how patients and their caregivers feel and what they may need at each step of the treatment journey, teams can ensure their messaging is appropriate. As Silbershatz Tomás sees things, the goal is to understand trigger points where you “have to speak to them from a supportive place, and where you have to speak to them from an urgent space,” and shape the messaging accordingly.

2. Identify where patients access information

Understanding the patient journey goes hand in hand with determining where patients seek information. Mormile explained that companies, particularly if they’re working with a small budget, sometimes focus their campaigns on search ads, but that approach is more frequently utilized with patients who are likely to research their condition before starting or changing treatments.

For some conditions, a patient may almost simultaneously receive their diagnosis and a prescription at their doctor’s office. If that treatment works, the patient might never seek further information online, and a campaign focused on search will miss them altogether.

As Mormile stressed, “You want to make sure you’re reaching [patients] at the point of care.” The idea is to place materials to ensure your product comes up in conversations between patients and healthcare professionals. That means “not only thinking about before and after the doctor, but physically at the doctor’s office,” she said.

3. Create materials that reflect patients’ experience

For content to truly resonate, it must accurately reflect what patients are feeling at a particular stage of the patient journey, Voltz said. Patients and caregivers need to see their own experience in every communication because “If you’re not relating to the person on a human level, you’re going to lose them, they’re not going to listen to what you have to say,” he counseled.

Silbershatz Tomás expanded on that point, explaining that campaigns can’t just speak to people as patients, as a doctor would. There has to be an emotional connection. Achieving that connection can be challenging when time or space is limited and the benefits of a product need to be explained, but Silbershatz Tomás is clear about what should take priority.

“I think it’s more important to ensure that you are emotionally connecting with them. Once you get that, then you can give them the more detailed messages on your product, on the functional benefits, maybe when they’re further along their journey and ready to digest that information,” she said.

4. Keep it simple

Channel evolution over the past 10 to 15 years has forced messaging to become simpler, Voltz said. For instance, when the medium is a social post or a digital banner, the message has to highlight the most important point—rather than give a comprehensive overview—because that’s all that will fit.

Content can be simplified in other areas, too. Patients are inundated with messaging while they’re at their doctor’s office, Silbershatz Tomás said, and then they then go home and are inundated when they’re searching on Google. When patients face such an information overload, it’s important to equip them with simple, understandable tools so they can start treatment conversations with their doctor.

Silbershatz Tomás’ belief in simplicity extends to the point of care. Although patients may be sitting at their doctor’s office for a long time, it can be unnecessary to communicate all the benefits of a product at that point. “I would urge you, when you’re creating for the point of care, to keep your message simple,” she said.

Find out how Phreesia can help you connect with clinically relevant patients at each stage of their treatment journey.

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Engaging with diverse patient populations: Q&A with PHM President Andrea Palmer

By Jackie Drees

We spoke with Andrea Palmer, President of Publicis Health Media, about how to build out engagements and messaging that resonates with all types of patient audiences.

Successfully engaging patients and gaining their confidence in your health content, products and services depends on earning their trust. But in building that trust, it’s important that healthcare stakeholders avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach.

Andrea Palmer, President of Publicis Health Media (PHM), spoke with Phreesia about connecting with diverse patient populations, including how to meet them with resources that resonate with their individual needs and through the channels they prefer most.

Phreesia: In today’s digital world, consumers have a wealth of healthcare information readily available at their fingertips. How can brands engage patients with content that resonates with their specific healthcare needs and experiences?

Andrea Palmer: Consumers are leveraging multiple means and resources to piece together answers to their health-related questions. Historically, this type of information discovery was limited to well-known endemic websites or traditional search engines. Today, diversifying media mix is critical to ensure you’re meeting consumers where they are. Social, paired with other channels such as the point of care, enables you to reach audiences at multiple touchpoints throughout their journey.

Phreesia: When building out relevant audiences, what are some top-focus priorities to make sure you reach diverse and vulnerable patient communities?

Andrea Palmer: There is no turnkey approach to diverse engagements and messaging, in part because oversimplifying identity can be so harmful to speaking to audiences authentically. Instead, at PHM we seek to reach these patient communities by looking at the data and building new solutions.

The data can help us solve for gaps in health equity, but only in the hands of an astute strategist. Most research relies on a wide sample, unintentionally obscuring the data from the minority, which is so crucial in this circumstance. Working closely and carefully with the data can uncover learnings that can unlock access to important health information for some communities.

Phreesia: In a recent Phreesia survey, both Black and Hispanic patients ranked their trust in health information they saw at the point of care higher than health content they saw in print, on social media, on the internet and on TV.¹ Why is it important to engage with patients of color through the channels they trust most?

Andrea Palmer: In addressing all audiences, cultural competence is crucial. In healthcare, we are engaged with audiences on the most personal topics possible—it’s critical to remember we are engaging with people, not as statistics. This means carefully selecting content and channels that are preferred sources and populating them with relevant and medically sound information. Furthermore, that information should be tailored to the languages and cultural nuances organic to those communities to ensure further health literacy and engagement. This helps to build trust between HCPs and patients as well as foster interactions in which critical health information can be impactfully communicated to the patient. In the end, this creates a path to improving patient outcomes, which is the real measure of success for any healthcare campaign.

Phreesia: How does PHM stay on top of healthcare consumer trends and patients’ evolving expectations?

Andrea Palmer: We work to create bespoke solutions that not only address specific audiences, but also those audiences’ respective behaviors right now. Certainly, the way we as consumers looked for health information 10 years ago is hugely different than our behaviors today, so our tools need to evolve as well. Last year we debuted seven new solutions at The PHM HealthFront, our annual Upfront for health, which returns this spring. This year, we’ll be announcing all new, first-to-market solutions to connect with audiences across communities.

Hear experts from Phreesia and PHM discuss the impact that point-of-care messaging can have on patient engagement at The PHM HealthFront 2023.

References

¹Phreesia pharmaceutical-advertising perceptions survey: June–July 2022 [n=3,023]

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Closing the knowledge gap for cancer patients: 3 ways to boost condition, treatment and support awareness

By Jackie Drees

Many cancer patients are unaware of important aspects of their condition and treatment options, Phreesia survey data shows.

Condition and treatment knowledge is vital for ensuring that cancer patients are fully informed about the likely course of their disease and potential therapy options. However, new data shows that awareness of these important topics is lagging among patients with breast, skin, blood, prostate and other cancers.

Results from 825 patients diagnosed with or treated for cancer who were surveyed on Phreesia’s PatientInsights platform in 2022 as they checked in for their doctors’ appointments revealed the extent of this knowledge gap: More than one-third (34%) of cancer patients said they were unaware of how far their cancer had advanced, and the same percentage (34%) said they lacked a clear understanding of their cancer therapy before starting treatment.

Addressing these knowledge gaps will require industry-wide collaboration. Here are three ways to help improve cancer patients’ understanding of their condition, their treatment options and the support resources available to them.

1. Cultivate more informed discussions between healthcare providers (HCPs) and patients

Many cancer patients are unaware of important aspects of their condition and treatment options. For example, only 35% of surveyed patients said they had undergone genetic or biomarker testing for their cancer, and nearly 1 in 4 (24%) were unsure whether they had even received such testing. The remaining 41% of patients said they had not undergone genetic or biomarker testing—a lost opportunity for both them and their HCP to gain insights that could have better informed their care.

Improving patients’ knowledge about their cancer and its treatment starts with properly educating HCPs, says Denise Myers, Vice President, Media, CMI Media Group. “Not only the oncologists, but also the nurse practitioners, physician assistants and staff who meet with patients on a more regular basis [need to be educated], so that they’re equipped with the right tools to have deeper conversations with patients about their type of cancer, treatment options and coping mechanisms,” she says.

It’s equally important to provide patients with relevant educational materials before their appointment to support in-depth patient-provider discussions. For instance, doctor discussion guides delivered at the point of care can help cancer patients organize their thoughts and formulate the questions they want to ask their doctor right before their appointment.

2. Deliver relevant resources to patients where they’re already looking for them

Beyond consulting with their HCPs, many cancer patients also do their own research on their condition. About 7 in 10 (69%) surveyed cancer patients said they leveraged resources other than their provider to learn more about their cancer, citing online search and general and specific cancer websites as their most-used channels. Reaching cancer patients across these platforms is vital for connecting them with the personalized disease education and programs they’re actively seeking.

“While patients value the information they get from their HCPs, they’re also thinking, ‘Ok, I need to be my best advocate. I’ve got to do my own research and come prepared for these conversations with my doctor,’” Myers says.

And because cancer patients are proactive researchers, it’s essential to bring them relevant cancer-related resources and education through multiple touchpoints—from print placements and online content to point-of-care information. Employing a variety of engagements can help ensure that your messages resonate across the board, better empowering patients to participate in their treatment decisions.

3. Leverage advocacy groups to connect patients with support programs

Patient-support programs are vastly underused by cancer patients, despite their proven value in providing education about cancer conditions and treatments, as well as financial assistance. About 4 in 5 (79%) surveyed patients said they had not used patient-support programs while undergoing cancer treatment.

Phreesia survey results indicate that patients who haven’t used patient support programs most want information about their condition or treatment options, which is the same type of education that most patients who have used these programs received support for. Developing partnerships with key advocacy and research groups is a strong way to not only make more cancer patients aware of these offerings but to also ensure relevant programs are offered to patients who need them most. In terms of support offerings, 1 in 4 surveyed patients who haven’t used support programs said they want cancer-focused therapy and self-care (24%) support, and about 1 in 5 want financial assistance (18%).

“There are many different types of cancers, so affiliations between manufacturers and advocacy groups can help connect the dots for all cancer patient audiences by aligning them with the associations that best meet their specific treatment needs and can provide additional tailored research and support,” Myers says.

Find out how Phreesia can help you reach clinically relevant patients to help drive awareness of their condition, treatment and support offerings.

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How to advance health equity for rare disease patients: 3 ways

By Jackie Drees

Increasing disease awareness and expanding diagnostic and treatment support is crucial to improving healthcare access for underserved populations with rare diseases.

For the estimated 350 million people worldwide with rare diseases, getting an accurate diagnosis and starting the right treatment is often a long and arduous process. And for underserved populations with rare diseases, those challenges are vastly magnified.

With more than 7,000 currently known rare diseases, the common timeline for diagnosis is between three and 15 years, according to the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Correctly identifying, diagnosing and treating rare diseases depends on numerous factors, ranging from the support of various medical-specialty teams to leveraging expensive therapies. Those factors can make the treatment journey even more difficult for underserved populations who already experience socioeconomic, geographic and other barriers to accessing healthcare.

Here are three ways to help increase rare-disease awareness, expand patient support and tailor clinical-research opportunities to improve health equity for underserved populations with rare diseases.

1. Provide rare-disease education and support tools at the point of care

For underserved patients with rare diseases, it’s often a major challenge to simply access or get referrals to medical specialists who are equipped to identify their condition, says James O’Neill, Vice President of Media Services, Evoke.

“The only situation in which you’ll have a healthcare provider (HCP) who feels confident in diagnosing most of these rare diseases is if they’re a specialist,” O’Neill says. “This is challenging for underserved patients to access, not only from a healthcare-cost perspective, but also in the sense of having the necessary time and resources for navigating that journey.”

Social-determinant-of-health (SDOH) barriers such as lack of access to transportation for medical appointments, living far away from the closest appropriate specialists and high care costs can all prevent underserved populations from getting the specialty care they need to treat their rare disease. However, there are resources available to help them, from doctor discussion guides to copay-assistance programs. Getting those materials into patients’ hands in the moments before they speak with their HCP can empower them to ask about treatment options they may not have previously considered because of cost.

2. Increase physician understanding of rare-disease patients’ SDOH factors

Physicians aren’t always fully aware of a patient’s health circumstances, including the social determinants of health that can affect their treatment adherence. Especially with rare diseases, that lack of understanding can lead physicians to prescribe—or not prescribe—certain therapies for underserved populations based on their assumption that those patients won’t be able to maintain the treatment’s regimen, O’Neill says.

“For example, if a physician knows a second-line treatment requires a lot of adherence needs, they might not recommend it for underserved populations,” he says. “If the patient has had trouble keeping their appointments with them in the past, the HCP might think, ‘I’m not going to prescribe this treatment because there are too many steps [that the patient will] need to take before being able to receive it.’”

Encouraging HCPs to consider their patients’ SDOH, while also empowering patients to discuss the obstacles they face with treatment adherence can help HCPs better connect patients to the resources they need to start and stay on treatment. It’s also crucial to leverage the support of patient-advocacy groups to help underserved patients with rare diseases become better advocates for their own health, giving them the medical information and guidance they need to make better-informed healthcare decisions. These advocacy groups also provide a range of services to help rare-disease patients and their caregivers manage healthcare costs and find transportation assistance, among other offerings.

3. Engage underserved patients in rare-disease clinical-trial planning

While clinical research as a care option (CRAACO) is already difficult to achieve under the best of circumstances, underserved populations with rare diseases are doubly burdened. Understanding these patients and incorporating their feedback to increase their trial participation is, therefore, that much more important.

Interacting with rare disease patients during their online check-in process for doctor’s appointments is a promising way to find and engage with them to better understand the factors that affect their ability and willingness to participate in trials. A recent Phreesia survey of more than 4,300 patients found that patients trust digital appointment check-in more than any other media platform for clinical-trial information, positioning the point of care as an optimal place to engage with patients about clinical trials and research as a care option.

When it comes to engaging with underserved populations to design clinical trials that accommodate their unique needs, applying a patient-centric approach is essential, says Kelsey Shore, Research Manager, Phreesia.

“Patient centricity is about engaging patients on their own terms. This is key to finding patients and ensuring that diversity is prioritized in research, especially with rare diseases,” Shore says. “These patients spend an enormous amount of their time, money and effort on their healthcare. They don’t have a lot of time as it is, so understanding and integrating their real-world needs into clinical research as a care option is crucial for improving health equity.”

Find out how Phreesia can help you engage with and activate rare disease patients at critical moments in their healthcare journey.

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3 trends transforming patient outreach in 2023

By Phreesia Network Solutions

Success in 2023 will require a clear understanding of these forces and their impact on patient outreach. Here’s what they mean for your strategy.

Healthcare in 2023 will be shaped by consumerism trends that accelerated toward personalization, flexibility and convenience during the pandemic—but they’re far from the only forces influencing the industry.

Stakeholders across the healthcare ecosystem are prioritizing long-standing concerns about health equity and social determinants of health, forcing organizations to act. And consumers are rethinking their relationship to technology, particularly the data it captures, paying more attention to what they share—and what they gain—when they interact with brands online.

Success in 2023 will require a clear understanding of these forces and their impact on patient outreach. Here, we share how three senior leaders are thinking about and adapting to them, as well as insights into what they mean for your strategy.

1. Health equity

Health disparities continue to persist, but the response to them is changing. From the White House down, improving health equity has become a top priority. As Kris Doerfler, Director of Innovation at CMI Media Group, puts it, “There’s been a reckoning in our society around health disparities.”

That reckoning has occurred in lockstep with a broader focus on diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) that is manifesting real change. “We’ve attempted to address those issues within our own industry and our own practices,” Doerfler says. “DE&I is now a qualifier, not something to stand out. When we go to meet a new supplier, we will ask DE&I questions.” And suppliers often have the answers in hand, he adds.

Such efforts are shaping patient outreach, too. Nina Kreutzberg, Associate Director of Client Experience at Phreesia, anticipates that healthcare organizations will continue to “strive to understand and build inclusive patient experiences” and that brands will work both internally and cross-functionally to segue corporate goals around health equity.

As companies adapt to their new priorities, they may find that processes built for old objectives need to be updated. “Unique, culturally competent, inclusive experiences are not novelties, but organizations will need to continue to look for meaningful ways to measure and integrate them into brand and corporate KPIs,” Kreutzberg says.

2. At-home care

After seeing remote monitoring, testing and treatment approaches battle-tested during the pandemic, Dave Leitner, Managing Director, Head of Media at Klick Health, expects to see a growing emphasis on at-home care this year.

“At-home testing and care date back to the introduction of thermometers and fever reducers, but there is a renewed focus on these due to COVID-19 and numerous wearable devices,” Leitner says.

With this rise of new remote technologies comes new opportunities to connect with patients. With wearables delivering a continuous stream of data to healthcare providers, the number of doctor-patient touchpoints is likely to increase, opening the door for additional point-of-care outreach.

3. Data privacy

Consumers’ data-privacy concerns have been mounting in recent years, leading to the California Consumer Privacy Act and similar laws in other states that will impact the industry. Legislation is already in place in Virginia and is slated to take effect in Colorado, Connecticut and Utah in the coming months. With those impending regulations in mind, Leitner points out that brands will need to ensure they have their data-collection and use policies in place in order to stay compliant.

Reassuring consumers also will be key, regardless of the laws that govern the use of their data. In 2023, many consumers know the value of their data and have reservations about granting access to it. That concern is redefining the consumer-company relationship. In a world where patient outreach increasingly relies on consent, “It requires knowing them even better and building trust more consistently,” Kreutzberg explains.

Informed consent will be critical to delivering the customized messaging that consumers still want in an era of increased privacy. Big data has fueled a rise in personalization that, as Doerfler notes, “is driving significant changes in terms of how companies are looking to show up and what consumers are demanding from the brands that are trying to reach them.”

Find out how Phreesia can connect you to the patients you need to reach—wherever and however they seek care.

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3 reasons to engage patients in clinical-trial protocol design and planning

By Jackie Drees

Understanding and incorporating patients’ experiences in the clinical-trial planning process helps ensure the success of trials for both patients and the industry alike.

It’s crucial to gather and incorporate patient feedback into the design and planning of clinical trials, not only for the success of those trials, but also for the positive impact it has on both patients and the industry as a whole. Engaging patients early in the clinical-trial design process helps industry leaders ensure that the trials they plan will adequately meet the needs of their participants, thus increasing their involvement in the trials themselves.   

Fortunately for clinical researchers, there are many ways to get patients involved in the trial-planning process, such as reaching them through advocacy organizations or engagement organizations focused on surveying patients for their feedback and experience data, says Ella Balasa, a patient advocate and consultant. Below, she shares three reasons why understanding patients’ preferences and incorporating their experiences into clinical-trial design and planning can help improve trial success rates for both patients and the industry. 

1. Applying a patient-centric approach to trial designs helps ensure optimal resulting treatments 

A clear understanding of patients’ symptoms and experiences can help manufacturers create treatments that more effectively align with patients’ needs. By powering trials for endpoints based on those needs, investigators can better test whether a treatment will be beneficial.   

And, after a drug has been approved, “Patients are then more likely to potentially use it, since they know that other patients were involved in the process, and that the product will then be most suited for them,” Balasa explains.  

But to be truly patient-centric, trial planners must go beyond merely asking patients for their feedback and take it a step further. “Being patient-centric can’t just be a box-checking exercise,” Balasa says. “Patient input must be holistically considered and then implemented when and where possible.”  

Diversity is another important factor to consider when engaging patients in the clinical-trial planning process. By ensuring that feedback is gathered from a range of patients with varying disease experiences, investigators can more fully take into account different types of patients and their diverse backgrounds—which ultimately expands trial planners’ knowledge about the safety and efficacy of potential new treatments.   

2. Early engagement with patients increases their likelihood of participating in clinical trials   

Understanding the factors that affect patients’ ability and willingness to participate in clinical trials and structuring them to meet their needs may increase trial participation, which, in turn, can help speed up the regulatory approval process.  

Having access early on to more insights—such as patients’ top priorities for treatments—helps limit the chances of investigators needing to go back and alter protocol after the development stage. The resulting savings in time and financial resources can be reallocated into improving the accuracy of early research results and, in turn, help to accelerate the FDA approval process.   

Plus, when asked directly to be involved in the clinical trial development and design process, patients not only feel inclined to do so for their own early access to treatments but other patients, too, feel empowered to participate having learned through patient organizations, forums and brand marketing that the end product was developed with actual patient experiences incorporated so early on. 

“Patients can help with shaping the direction of research questions and determining what is most important to other future trial participants,” Balasa says.  

3. Gathering patient feedback improves trust between patients and brands   

Both patients and life sciences organizations have the same goal: They want to improve health outcomes. Incorporating patient feedback into clinical-trial design and planning can help strengthen the relationship between patients and manufacturers by showing patients that their needs are being addressed and helping them take a more active role in their treatment opportunities.   

“When patients aren’t involved in the development process, they can feel like they’re merely a participant in the trial or just a receiver of the drug,” Balasa says. “By incorporating their feedback into the design process, patients feel empowered and [they] know they’re going to be receiving a treatment that is optimized to their disease.”   

And reaching patients through channels they trust can not only help increase the number of survey participants and overall feedback available on design and trial planning, but also help foster greater trust in life sciences organizations among patients who are interested in learning more about relevant clinical trial opportunities. A recent Phreesia survey of more than 4,300 patients found that patients trust digital appointment check-in more than any other media platform for clinical-trial information.

Learn how Phreesia can help your organization gather strategic insights from patients at the point of care and deliver relevant health content that meets their needs.

1. Evaluate “patient centricity”

2. Find and leverage patient testimonials

3. Prioritize representation and customize content for specific channels

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