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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.

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How point-of-care messaging can boost patient trust and activation

By Jackie Drees

Phreesia survey data shows that patients trust and engage most with content they see at the point of care, compared with other channels.

In today’s digital world, patients receive healthcare content from a range of mass-media channels. With that broad mix in mind, it’s crucial to reach patients in ways they trust and in the spaces they engage with most—and new data shows that’s the point of care.

Not only do patients consider the content they see at the point of care more reliable than messaging on TV and social media, but they also feel more motivated to start conversations with their doctor about medication information they see at the point of care, according to recent surveys conducted on Phreesia’s PatientInsights platform of more than 10,500 patients as they checked in for their doctors’ appointments.

Here are three reasons why the point of care has a clear advantage over mass-media channels, from higher levels of patient trust and engagement to cost efficiency.

1. Patients find point-of-care messaging more reliable than other channels

Patients trust the medication information they see at the point of care (20%) significantly more than the content they see in print (14%), on social media (10%), on the internet (9%) and on TV (8%). Unsurprisingly, patients also report that they find point-of-care content more helpful than content they see on other channels. Nearly 1 in 5 patients (17%) found point-of-care messaging at least “quite a bit” helpful, greater than the percentages of patients who found messaging helpful in print (13%), on social media (10%), on TV (9%) or on the internet (7%).

The helpfulness and trust that patients find in treatment information presented to them at the point of care also translates directly into greater opportunities for patient activation, says Nicole Divinagracia, Executive Director of The Point of Care Marketing Association.

Point-of-care engagements reach patients “at a time and place where they are most receptive and are more able to start conversations, prompting [them] to ask about things such as symptoms, diseases and treatments,” she says.

2. Point-of-care messaging empowers more patients to participate in their treatment decisions

Patients who view content at the point of care are more likely to start conversations with their healthcare provider (HCP) about their medication options, compared with patients who view content on other channels. Phreesia’s survey data found that nearly one-quarter (23%) of patients who viewed content at the point of care asked their doctor about those medications in the past 6 months, greater than the percentages of patients who saw print (17%), social media (15%), internet (13%) and TV (11%) engagements.

“We know that empowered patients are educated, and education can transform patients into self-advocates,” Divinagracia says. “When patients are visiting their HCP, it’s because they are thinking about their health, so they are already in the right mindset to take in new information.”

Health content delivered at the point of care also motivates patients to find out more about it. Phreesia’s survey data found that patients who saw content at the point of care were four times more likely to seek additional information (16%), compared with those who saw content on TV/streaming services (4%).

“Patients turn to their healthcare providers as trustworthy sources of information, so there is a halo effect when it comes to messaging being placed at the point of care,” Divinagracia says. “Messaging at the point of care can prompt discussion between the patient and their HCP so patients can receive answers to their questions from a trusted source immediately after exposure.”

3. Point-of-care messaging is more cost efficient than other channels

In addition to inspiring more trust and sparking greater patient activation, health content delivered at the point of care also is more cost effective. A recent case study from Veeva Crossix that evaluated the impact of a brand’s direct-to-consumer (DTC) campaign found that the point of care was the most cost-efficient driver of conversions. Representing just 2% of the campaign’s overall media investment, the point of care was attributed to driving 17% of new-to-brand prescriptions (NBRx). Conversely, the channels with greater campaign spend didn’t have as strong results. Media investments in TV (68%) and paid search (6%) drove lower percentages of NBRx conversions at 45% and 2%, respectively.

The combination of point of care and TV also ranked second in terms of unique reach among consumers for the branded, multi-channel DTC campaign. Incorporating point-of-care messaging into your media plan can help reach specific patients and achieve a more highly qualified audience, thereby making a measurable impact, Divinagracia says.

“Regardless of budget, a brand using point of care can reach the right person right at the moment of decision-making, so ultimately, their investment works harder for them,” she says.

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

References

¹ Veeva Crossix, Cross Channel Impact, 1H 2022

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3 ways to run compliant, trusted campaigns amid changing data privacy rules

By Phreesia Network Solutions

The data privacy landscape is changing. Hear from industry experts on how to practice responsible data use while keeping patients’ privacy at the forefront of any campaign.

Data privacy is changing. Led by California, many states are enacting stricter laws governing how data is used and protected, creating a patchwork of varying requirements for companies to meet. At the same time, patients are questioning how their data is being used and why. Nevertheless, many patients are willing to share their data—provided they see the value in doing so.

At Digital Pharma East 2022, Phreesia Life Sciences’ Director of Analytics, Amy Patel, sat down with Jorge Andres Morales, North America Compliance Manager with ViiV Healthcare, and Amy Papili, Associate Director of U.S. Privacy at AstraZeneca, to discuss how data privacy is changing and what companies need to do to adapt.

“We’ve seen such a change in these past few years, and particularly in the past few months, with things happening in the policy landscape that make it much more apparent to patients how their data can be utilized and leveraged, sometimes in ways that are maybe not comfortable,” Patel said.

Those changes necessitate a response from the pharma industry, she added, as well as “an increasing level of responsibility that we all need to take when we think about the privacy of data on behalf of our healthcare providers and especially our patients.”

Here are three key steps to take before launching any campaign to practice responsible data use, ensure greater transparency and keep respect for patients’ privacy at the forefront.

1. Think about data privacy and engage with experts early on in a project

Papili sees value in all teams within a company having a “certain awareness” of data privacy, but the complex, fast-changing nature of the field means that only those who consistently work on the topic will fully grasp the issues it presents. Bringing privacy experts on board before starting a new project can help avoid problems down the line.

“If I can come in early, I like to try to identify where some of the pitfalls may come in from a data privacy perspective,” Papili said. “The worst-case scenario is for somebody to come in late and for me to say, ‘You can’t do it that way,’ or ‘You have to do it a different way.’”

Early engagement helps privacy experts understand a campaign and why it’s important to the company, ultimately allowing them to give better advice. That advice is shaped by the response to such questions as, “What are you collecting?”, “Why are you using it?”, “How long are you retaining it?” and, “Are you collecting more than you need?”

That final scope-of-use question covers a common pitfall.

“Focus on what you really need when you are collecting information,” Morales said. Technology enables the collection of many data types, such as location, but he advises companies to gather only the information they need to achieve their patient-messaging goals. For some projects, an email address and first name may be enough.

2. Be transparent with patients about the use of their data to earn and retain their trust

Ensuring compliance with privacy requirements is only part of the challenge. It’s also vital to communicate with patients about the use of their data so that they fully understand what information they’re consenting to provide and exactly how it will be used.

“It’s very important that we tell people what we are collecting and how we’re using it. It’s important that it’s clear and that people can understand it,” Papili said.

Morales expanded on that consideration, noting that while data-privacy documents are reviewed by legal departments that use their own terminology, it’s important for organizations to put themselves in patients’ shoes and ensure that all privacy notices are “written in simple and plain English so that they’re easy to digest and understand,” he said.

Transparency is the right, patient-centric approach, and it’s also required under some data-usage laws. For example, personal information can only be used for the original purpose for which it was obtained. If someone wants to use that information for a different purpose, they must notify the individuals who provided it. Transparency also extends to informing patients if a data breach occurs, not only because some laws require it, but also to “gain the trust of our patients,” Morales said.

3. Make sure third-party partners’ practices meet the company’s data-privacy standards

Third-party relationships are the final piece of the data-privacy puzzle. A company can establish effective internal controls and clearly communicate its privacy policies to patients, only to be undermined by an external partner’s lax practices.

“We may have the best controls in place, the best privacy policy, the best security, but we don’t operate alone, we operate with third parties,” Papili explained. “And so it’s important to understand that our third parties are the extension of our company, they’re the extension of our reputation. You probably all remember the Target breach, but you don’t remember the third party’s name that caused it.”

Papili recommended that pharma companies ask their third-party vendors to explain their privacy practices and how they control, use and share data. That approach reflects a philosophy that “they’re all part of the same team” and that reputations “can quickly be destroyed,” she said. Once lost, patient trust is hard to regain.

Learn how Phreesia can help you safely connect with patients at key moments in their healthcare journey.

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3 ways market researchers should respond to the consumerization of healthcare

By Jackie Drees

With the growing demand for convenient and personalized healthcare experiences, researchers must embrace new digital tools and processes to stay aligned with consumers’ evolving expectations.

The COVID-19 pandemic skyrocketed the adoption of digital tools and shifted consumers’ healthcare expectations.

Technologies designed to facilitate contactless provider interactions, including telehealth, online check-in, and two-way text messaging simultaneously accelerated patient-centricity, making healthcare experiences more like other consumer-focused industries, such as banking, travel, and foodservice.

Just as patients and healthcare professionals (HCPs) had to quickly adopt new technologies at the start of the pandemic, market researchers also had to embrace digital tools, since face-to-face interactions often weren’t possible, says Joyce Wang, Phreesia’s Associate Research Director. Now, as the demand for convenient, flexible, and personalized healthcare continues to grow, research must become more agile to adapt to consumers’ changing preferences.

Here are three ways that researchers can find that agility and align with evolving consumer expectations.

1. Keep close tabs on patient behavior

Actionable market research depends on accurately analyzing patients’ experiences and preferences. In addition to gaining insights from resources such as thought leadership reports, the growing industry focus on digital healthcare gives analysts more opportunities to use tech-based tools to stay in tune with consumer behaviors and trends. Market researchers should be active in online patient communities to understand how different patient populations feel about their healthcare experiences, Wang says. She also recommends “social listening”, which is the process of analyzing patient conversations and industry trends that occur across social media platforms like Reddit or Twitter.

“I like to do social media listening; not on a larger scale, but just going to Reddit and reading what patients are saying about specific disease areas and any other information that I can glean to build a foundation before going into a survey or study,” Wang explains.

Market researchers also can apply artificial intelligence or machine-learning technologies to existing research to dig deeper into insight gaps and offer syndicated research to help get a pulse on generalized patient behaviors. Using these methods, researchers can combine broad findings from different patient populations to analyze consumer behaviors and traits that specific drug brands may be dealing with.

2. Tap into technology that supports research workflows

Virtual consumer interviews have created more opportunities to reach patients who may not have participated in market research in the past. However, this overall shift has come with rising expectations to generate consumer and industry insights more quickly and at a lower cost.

Fortunately, technology has enhanced traditional market research capabilities by supporting faster survey turnaround times and restructuring how analysts gather and process data in the field. Along with the demand for accelerated research results, Wang says there are new strategies and innovations to help streamline many typical market research headaches, from obtaining research-partner approvals from legal teams to project management issues.

Creating a dedicated space for some market research team members to navigate and implement emerging technologies that address these challenges can give time back to other team members to focus on traditional data collection and analysis, while also ensuring that they stay on top of new ways to reach patients and HCPs, such as online and mobile surveys.

3. Increase convenience for patients

To address one of the industry’s biggest overall trends, researchers and brand teams should actively embrace meeting consumer expectations for convenient, flexible healthcare tools and interactions. By integrating digital-engagement solutions at the point of care, they can increase survey-completion rates and catch patients when they’re already preparing to have discussions about their health and medical treatments.

Researchers also should make sure their methods are mobile-friendly since healthcare consumers have become accustomed to directly engaging with HCPs and health information through their smartphones. Optimizing market research for mobile interactions not only meets patient expectations for convenience, but it also speeds up information gathering, allowing researchers and pharma marketers to adapt more quickly to changing patient behaviors.

“It’s really important to be thinking about how we can make things easier for patients,” Wang says. “How can we optimize our surveys, websites, and information to be more convenient and efficient? It’s these little things that add up to a patient experience.”

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.

This content was originally published on GreenBook.

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New to point of care? Here are 3 things you should know

By Carly Helfand

The versatility of the point-of-care channel continues to expand. Hear from industry experts on how to maximize this channel’s potential.

The point of care is a versatile channel that has changed dramatically in recent years with an array of new capabilities that have expanded its use cases for marketers. Yet some of these advancements have flown under the radar, and consequently, marketers’ understanding of the channel hasn’t evolved to include the impact of new technologies and digital targeting.

There are many reasons why the point of care is an essential piece of a successful omnichannel strategy, and it’s a channel that can be used throughout the product life cycle. But marketers whose concept of the point of care centers on wallboards and print materials may miss out on the full value the channel can provide.

Whether you’re exploring engagement possibilities at the point of care for the first time or catching up on advancements you may have missed, there are a few things you should know before launching your point-of-care campaign. Here are three key insights that will help you maximize this channel’s potential.

1. It’s not just a reminder channel

When many marketers think of the point of care, they solely think of it as an opportunity to remind patients of media they may have seen earlier through mass-media channels such as TV. And while that’s one thing the channel can do, it’s not the only thing: It can also do the heavy lifting of raising awareness—especially where mass-media channels are falling short, says Jason Celestino, Lead Client Experience Manager at Phreesia Network Solutions.

“What people don’t really realize is that their other media isn’t reaching their target patient all the time—and even if it is, we know that the further a patient is from exposure, by the time they get to the point of care, that brand awareness and recall is much lower than we would think,” he says.

That fact is reflected in Phreesia survey data collected at the point of care. In a recent survey, just 5% of patients with a specific health condition recognized a leading brand, despite more than $280 million in TV ad spend. Another survey showed that after more than 21 billion asthma TV impressions, 31% of surveyed patients couldn’t recall a single brand name.

That awareness gap points to a different opportunity for point-of-care media. Particularly as TV media prices increase, and consumer privacy restrictions hamper digital media’s ability to reach high-quality patient audiences, the point of care can be an effective place to implement strategies across stages of the marketing funnel traditionally reserved for mass media.

“So many patients, by the time they get to the point of care, don’t really have brands top-of-mind,” Celestino says. “Point of care truly is more than just a reminder channel—it’s an awareness channel.”

2. It’s more digital than ever before

The point of care isn’t what it used to be. New digital capabilities have revolutionized the space in recent years, proving to be of critical necessity with the accelerated adoption of telehealth, which has expanded the point of care well beyond the four walls of the doctor’s office and brought audience-based, rather than location-based, strategies to the fore.

While wallboards and print materials in the physical waiting room are still part of the picture, “Point of care is more digital than ever before, and with that, we have many new opportunities,” says Dave Leitner, EVP and Head of Media at Klick Health. And the list of opportunities will only continue to grow as the number of digital doctor-patient touchpoints increases, he predicts.

Patients already make appointments, check in, get updates and communicate with their providers online, opening the door for marketers to reach them in new ways both before and after their appointments, whether that’s in a virtual waiting room, during intake or through a post-visit reminder email.

And, as remote patient monitoring gains in popularity and wearables feed a continuous stream of data to healthcare providers, “It’s going to translate into more moments where patients and HCPs need to connect, which should create more opportunities that serve point-of-care messaging,” Leitner says.

3. Messaging matters

While it may be tempting to reuse creative that’s worked on other channels at the point of care, it’s not the way to go, says Jennifer Tesoroni, VP, Director of Multichannel Media at SSCG Media Group. No matter the stage of a product’s life cycle, “Having very specific messaging for point of care is important,” she advises.

Instead of recycling content, Tesoroni suggests that marketers think through the patient’s healthcare journey and the doctor-patient conversation to determine what types of resources would be most helpful, whether that might be a copay card, a doctor discussion guide or a post-visit reminder message.

“We’re not just taking a general banner and plopping it in,” she says. “We’re working with the client, working with the creative team, to make sure we have the right message for the right time.”

The result is a campaign that successfully maximizes the channel’s capabilities. “That’s our one opportunity to be able to make an impact,” Tesoroni adds, “so we want to make sure it’s not wasteful.”

Learn how Phreesia can help you connect with and activate relevant patients at the point of care by delivering tailored content at the right moments in their healthcare journey.

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3 ways to be more inclusive with brand outreach

By Danielle Lynch and Yesenia Bautista

Applying a patient-centric approach to point-of-care content ensures that all types of patient populations get the health content they need most.

Underserved patient populations often face barriers to accessing healthcare, from cultural and language differences to economic and geographic disadvantages, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of these barriers, patients in underserved communities—which can include rural, elderly and some diverse populations, among others—don’t always get the health content they need from pharma marketers.

However, there are effective, impactful methods for reaching all types of patients. Here are three ways that pharma marketers can be more inclusive in their brand targeting and help support better patient health outcomes.

1. Create and tailor content to key patient demographics

Pharma marketers should partner with vendors that can safely collect and leverage demographic data in a HIPAA-compliant manner to create and serve content that will resonate with specific patient populations. Having access to information such as patients’ race, social determinants of health (SDOH) and language preferences can help match your brand messaging and resources to patients based on their specific needs. When collecting this data at check-in, for example, vendors can adapt to a patient’s primary language by giving them resources such as medication information or doctor discussion guides in their preferred language.

By implementing more inclusive, data-based targeting, you also can empower patients by educating them about health conditions that may disproportionately affect their community or offer resources that address their potential SDOH barriers to care.

2. Put patients—not physicians—at the center

Limiting media coverage to only high-prescribing physicians’ offices is a common, yet restrictive way to build a media plan. While this is a standard method that marketing teams have used to align their field-force efforts with their non-personal media, it often poses limitations in reaching critical patient segments.

Focusing point-of-care advertising exclusively on locations of high-prescribing healthcare provider (HCP) offices bypasses opportunities to reach underserved patients who may be the right fit for your brand message but simply aren’t seeking care from those high-volume prescribers’ offices. Consequently, these are the patients who then miss out on your brand message and support materials that can help get them the care they need.

Instead, to take a more patient-centric approach to media planning, pharma marketers should explore progressive media options available that do not require lists to find clinically relevant patient populations. This will help pharma marketers avoid limiting themselves in their ability to find certain patients who may need more information they can provide.

3. Provide patients with content they can understand based on where they are in their therapeutic journey

To set patients up for therapeutic success, give them content relevant to the current stage of their healthcare journey, whether that means disease awareness or ongoing care and medication adherence. Targeting patients using clinically relevant information such as their medical or medication history will likely make them more receptive to branded content because it will feel more personalized to their needs.

Applying a better-informed approach to patient targeting also helps to identify which patients might be ready to try a treatment and which patients might need more education—a frequent differentiator among patients facing care access barriers. For example, underserved patient populations can sometimes have lower rates of treatment awareness: 54% of Hispanic patients with asthma say they are unaware of biologic treatments for their condition, compared with 45% of patients in the overall population, according to Phreesia survey data gathered from more than 5,500 patients checking in for doctors’ appointments in September 2021.

Finally, focusing marketing efforts solely on where the patient is physically overlooks where they are in their personal care journey—and means missed opportunities to provide them with targeted, crucial support. While two patients in a dermatology office might have the same condition, one might be trying their second type of medication treatment, while the other hasn’t been diagnosed yet. By finding and engaging patients based on their individual therapeutic journey, you can equip them with relevant educational resources that empower them to discuss therapy options with their HCP, choose the right medications and understand the importance of adhering to them—resulting in better health outcomes.

Danielle Lynch is Phreesia’s Vice President of Client Experience, Network Solutions.

Yesenia Bautista is the Director of Point-of-Care Media at Publicis Health Media.

About Phreesia Network Solutions

Phreesia’s targeting capabilities ensure a greater focus on the patient. HCPs in all 50 states use our platform, which is also in more than 70 types of specialty provider offices. Our HIPAA-compliant digital engagement tools capture patient profiles and demographic information that can be used to generate guidance on reach for brands that want to develop and tailor content to highly qualified patient audiences. Phreesia Network Solutions helps brands expand the reach of their creative campaigns, allowing them to be more inclusive in their messaging efforts, thereby diversifying the patient pools with which they engage.

About Publicis Health Media  

PHM is the leading health media agency in the U.S. We are designed for—and dedicated to—delivering best-in-class solutions that connect people with meaningful health and wellness solutions every day. Guided by our genuine passion for health and wellness, our work across the entire media ecosystem helps real patients navigate the most pivotal moments of their healthcare journeys.  

At PHM, we sit squarely at the intersection of Publicis Health, the largest Healthcare Communications network in the world, and Publicis Media, the number one buyer of media in the U.S. This gives us access to talent, technology and data to help us deliver the market-leading solutions that give our clients true competitive advantage.   

Learn how Phreesia can help you reach and activate diverse patient groups by delivering tailored health content that addresses their unique needs.

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3 ways pharma marketers can help boost preventive care among LGBTQ+ patients

By Jackie Drees

Phreesia survey data shows that LGBTQ+ patients experience inequities in knowledge and usage of preventive health services.

Members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer and/or questioning (LGBTQ+) community face unique challenges and biases when it comes to accessing preventive care. And because of these barriers, one-quarter of surveyed patients who self-identify as LGBTQ+ said they felt “not at all confident” they knew what preventive screenings they might currently need, according to survey data Phreesia Life Sciences and Klick Health collected from more than 1,500 patients in early 2022.

In a recent webinar, Amy Gómez, PhD, SVP, Diversity Strategy, Klick; Heath Morlok, Associate Director, Oncology, Integrated Customer Engagement, Merck; and Thea Briggs, Associate Director, Content Strategy, Phreesia Network Solutions, discussed some of the issues affecting LGBTQ+ preventive health access.

Here are three ways pharma marketers can boost preventive care among LGBTQ+ patients:

1. Acknowledge and address inequities that LGBTQ+ patients experience in medical settings

Members of the LGBTQ+ community face healthcare access barriers, such as higher rates of being either uninsured or underinsured. Apart from these challenges, this patient population also experiences discrimination in medical settings, and there are many patients who are treated in ways that make them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, explains Gómez.

“In fact, it’s not that uncommon for transgender people to have to educate [their] own HCP on their needs, which doesn’t exactly inspire trust,” she says. “In other cases, patients are being refused care for their actual or perceived identity. And again, this is particularly high in the transgender community. All of this has a negative impact on preventive care.”

Bias also appears within screening; for example, HCPs might talk about HIV screening for their patients who they perceive as being at greater risk for that condition and prioritize it over information on screenings for other conditions, such as high blood pressure or cancer. When asked which screenings their doctor had mentioned to them over the past two years, 30% of LGBTQ+ patients listed HIV, 33% listed sexually transmitted diseases and 25% listed depression, making them the three most-recommended screening suggestions. Yet, routine cancer checks were each recommended to well below half of eligible LGBTQ+ patients, according to survey data from Phreesia and Klick.

2. Increase HCPs’ awareness of LGBTQ+ preventive health gaps

There’s a general assumption that the LGBTQ+ community has overcome disparities such as gaps in preventive care, Morlok explains. However, this is far from the case given that LGBTQ+ patients have inadequate preventive care discussions with their doctors and aren’t getting screening reminders from their providers’ offices. Just 45% of these patients said they got preventive health reminder messages from their doctor’s office, compared with 64% of the overall population, survey data shows. The industry needs to recognize that there is still a lot of work to do in terms of awareness, starting with ensuring HCPs know when their patients identify as part of the LGBTQ+ community and what it means for their healthcare.

“[The LGBTQ+ community] is one of the fewer minority groups where that kind of identity/minority status isn’t readily obvious upon walking in the door and sitting down in an exam room,” Morlok says. “… I’ve realized I’ve never once been asked by any of my physicians if I identify with a portion of the LGBTQ+ community. And although I check off every medicine I’m allergic to, every condition that I’ve had, how many drinks I drink, how many times I smoke—I’ve never once checked a box asking my sexual identity or my gender identity.”

Without asking patients for their self-identification, Briggs says that physicians may not even recognize when their patient belongs to the LGBTQ+ community, or that this translates to gaps in preventive health measures. Survey results show that physicians seldom bring up preventive care with LGBTQ+ patients, with 67% reporting their doctor never brought up cancer screenings with them within the last two years, including 48% of LGBTQ+ patients over 45 years old.

“If you can’t have an open dialogue with your physician, there may be conversations you should be having that you’re not,” Briggs says. “[Patients and providers] need to come together to have these productive conversations. It’s just going to be a necessary part of boosting rates of preventive care items like cancer screening and immunization.”

3. Create materials and tailor messaging to support and resonate with the LGBTQ+ community

To help educate physicians on the issues LGBTQ+ patients experience, Gómez recommends creating resources such as patient discussion guides, which would be designed for the provider to better support their conversations with LGBTQ+ patients. The materials would ideally model to HCPs what it looks like to have bias-free, non-judgmental conversations that cover all of LGBTQ+ patients’ medical and preventive healthcare needs.

And while visual representation is a big component of advertising, less than half (44%) of surveyed LGBTQ+ patients agreed that pharma ads reflect their experience as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. To connect and resonate with this patient population, healthcare marketers must embrace cross-cultural marketing practices.

“Cross-cultural marketing, when it’s done right, is a strategic, insight-driven discipline that is all about understanding the attitudes, the beliefs, the behaviors, the unmet needs of your audience,” Gómez says. “That means starting from research. If you want to tailor a message that is authentic so that it’s relevant, we have to be super thoughtful and deliberate about including LGBTQ+ individuals in our market research.”

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

BLOG POST

3 reasons why digital point-of-care engagement is an omnichannel strategy essential

By Jackie Drees

Why point-of-care is the missing puzzle piece to your omnichannel marketing strategy.

Building a successful omnichannel strategy in pharma marketing requires finding the right balance among the content channels that reach your audience, from mass media to print and more. And while spending enormous sums on TV and other media channels may help drive some general brand awareness, investing in the point of care can amplify those efforts by connecting brands with target patient audiences at critical moments in their healthcare journey.

In 2021, the top 10 pharma-brand media buyers spent $1.6 billion on TV ads,¹ while the pharma industry collectively doled out about $1 billion for print advertising.² But despite the money being poured into mass media channels, brand awareness among clinically relevant patients is still low.

For instance:

Even with 21 billion TV-ad impressions in asthma in 2021,³nearly one-third (31%) of asthma patients couldn’t recall any brands for their condition by the time they got to the point of care, according to Phreesia survey results collected from more than 5,500 patients in September 2021.⁴
And although diabetes brands spent $777 million on TV, print and digital advertising in 2021,⁵only 15% of patients could recall all of the leading brands other than metformin in the category, according to a Phreesia survey of more than 4,000 patients checking in for their doctor’s appointments between December 2021 and January 2022.⁶

With today’s digital innovations, the point of care serves as a strong place to not only continue building brand awareness, but also to find a brand’s most clinically qualified target audience and provide them with content relevant to where they are in their healthcare journey.

“The point of care can be used strategically across the full marketing funnel,” says Natasha Vega, Associate Director, Integrated Media Planning at OMD. “Depending on the tactics selected within the channel, it can support awareness, consideration and conversion goals by reaching highly qualified and hard-to-reach patients right before they see their healthcare provider (HCP).”

Here are three reasons why optimizing media mix and increasing investment in digital point-of-care engagement is vital to your omnichannel strategy.

1. The point of care amplifies the impact of other media channels

While there are different yet important roles for each touchpoint in an omnichannel strategy, point-of-care marketing helps elevate those efforts to increase target-patient conversions to brand, says Danielle Lynch, Phreesia’s Vice President of Client Experience, Network Solutions.

“All the media you’ve invested in has worked hard to drive awareness and get the right patient to the doctor’s office. Why would you let go of them once they’re at that critical moment right before meeting with their healthcare provider?” Lynch says. “To not include targeted, digital point-of-care marketing is a disservice to all the other efforts within your omnichannel strategy as you miss the opportunity for that one last push while the patient is in a healthcare state of mind.”

Providing patients with relevant resources at the point of care can help drive better health outcomes by empowering them to discuss potential treatments or savings offers with their HCPs. Patients also are more likely to understand how well medications work (30%) when they see the information in their doctor’s office rather than on TV (25%), according to a Phreesia survey taken by more than 7,400 patients checking in for doctors’ appointments between February and March 2022.

2. The point of care reaches clinically relevant patients with the right message at the right time

Digital technology has changed how patients can be identified and activated at the point of care. While TV, print and other mass-media channels can reach patients at scale, such channels are prone to greater ad waste because of insufficient targeting, lack of relevancy and other inadequacies. Point-of-care digital-engagement tools, however, deliver targeted media based on patient demographics and are tailored to address their respective healthcare needs.

Whether looking to reach a broad demographic, specific diagnosed patient audience or medication prescribed, digital-engagement platforms at the point of care employ actionable data and targeting methods that connect patients with campaigns and resources relevant to their medical needs. Reaching patients while they’re in a healthcare state of mind also can help drive better outcomes: Phreesia survey data shows that ads at the point of care activate more patient-HCP discussions, with 40% of patients asking their doctor about pharma brands after seeing them at the point of care, compared to 27% of patients who had seen ads on TV.

“Point of care helps brands elicit and gain trust with their consumers, largely based on the patient’s existing trust with their HCP,” Vega says. “You can advertise on certain health endemic websites to elicit trust, but it’s important for patients to speak with their doctors and other members of their care team to make medical decisions collectively.”

3. The point of care can generate actionable data insights

While the phaseout of cookies and the emergence of new ad-tracking privacy restrictions have limited the precision of certain digital-media channels, pharma marketers still can safely collect first-party data through HIPAA-compliant point-of-care platforms that digitally target patients, thereby improving audience quality.

And because of their ability to leverage patient demographics and other data, digital point-of-care platforms can also offer more tailored measurement capabilities than mass-media channels. With these types of insights, marketers can measure their advertising’s impact on outcomes beyond NBRx numbers, analyzing such data as condition awareness and adherence, and generate campaign results more quickly.

“Digital engagement tactics have created more targeting flexibility within the point of care and have allowed marketers to receive more real-time results from campaigns,” Vega says. “With quicker access to these insights, marketers can evaluate what their omnichannel strategy may need from both a short-term and a long-term perspective to then manage or refine their campaigns.”

Learn how Phreesia can help your organization reach clinically relevant audiences and activate the right patients right before their medical appointments.

References

¹ https://www.fiercepharma.com/marketing/goodbye-humira-hello-dupixent-sanofi-and-regeneron-outspend-abbvie-to-take-2021-s-top-0
² https://mediaradar.com/blog/dtc-pharma-ad-trends-overview-new-advertisers/
³ https://www.ispot.tv/ads/resources/free-reports/pharma-otc-how-these-brands-are-approaching-tv-ads-in-2021/
⁴ https://networksolutions.phreesia.com/asthma-report
⁵ https://endpts.com/what-drug-categories-spend-the-most-on-advertising-diabetes-psoriasis-and-arthritis-top-the-list/
⁶ https://networksolutions.phreesia.com/type2-diabetes

BLOG POST

4 ways pharma marketers can help improve health equity

By Jackie Drees

We talked health equity with Karima Sharif, Head of Inclusive Investments and Partnerships at Publicis Health Media.

Many people in racial and ethnic minority groups experience healthcare disparities, making them higher risk for cardiovascular disease and cancer and severe illness or death from COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In addition to supplying treatments for these conditions, pharma can do more to improve health equity and help close these gaps for patients.

Because socioeconomic factors including financial stability, insurance coverage and health literacy can all impact health outcomes, it’s important to consider patients’ holistic experiences so that all populations have an equal opportunity to be as healthy as possible, says Karima Sharif, Head of Inclusive Investments and Partnerships at Publicis Health Media.

“Patient adherence is not simply writing the prescription and taking the doctor’s orders,” Sharif says. “It is truly understanding the full human being and the full socioeconomic effects on patients while they interact with their doctors. Pharma needs to understand and be aware of that, while also starting to think through how to address those inequities.”

Here are four ways that pharma marketers can help improve health equity.

1. Prioritize diverse and inclusive media investments

When making media investments, seek out marketplace suppliers that value diversity. Partnering with companies that prioritize involving and supporting underserved racial and ethnic groups helps to ensure that all patient populations are recognized and included in pharma outreach, treatments and more.

Sharif recommends investing in diverse-owned and diverse-targeted media suppliers since they are typically already actively engaged with communities where vulnerable patient groups face inequities, and therefore, best understand their unique healthcare challenges. By partnering with diverse-owned media suppliers, pharma also helps to put financial resources back into communities that are most affected by social determinants of health factors such as income and food insecurity.

“These are Black-owned or minority-owned [organizations] that help put the dollars back into the community, which then helps the ecosystem,” Sharif explains.

Crafting relationships with culturally relevant content producers, agencies and creators not only expands pharma’s opportunities to support the financial health of diverse communities, it also promotes engagement with hard-to-reach patients, improving their health literacy with important information that can help combat care inequities.

2. Practice cultural competence

It’s important not to be performative when entering diverse and underserved communities. Pharma professionals should make sure that healthcare professionals (HCPs) adequately understand cultural differences among the patients they see and know how to best engage with a variety of racial and ethnic communities, Sharif says. For example, pharma can help HCPs communicate more effectively with patients in predominantly Hispanic communities by recommending that they provide translators for their Spanish-speaking patients, as 62% of Hispanic patients prefer healthcare information and resources in Spanish, according to Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research cited by Forbes.

Also, ensuring that media offerings at the point of care and in doctors’ offices are tailored to the languages and cultural nuances of diverse patient communities is a great way to improve patients’ health literacy and support effective HCP-patient interactions across cultures. 

3. Partner with endemic media companies committed to cultural relevance

In addition to working with local and community-based content providers, it’s important to collaborate with some of the endemic companies that create culturally relevant content. Sixty-five percent of Hispanics can be reached consistency on Spanish language TV; because of this, Sharif suggests tapping into TelevisaUnivision and other Spanish-formatted networks such as NBCUniversal’s Telemundo when seeking to engage Hispanic patient populations. Partnering with diverse or minority-focused channels can help drive awareness among patient populations that are sometimes overlooked in data collection, research and development. 

Disseminating health information and media through channels that targeted diverse communities already trust will help support pharma’s relationships with those patient groups and ultimately increase patient awareness of specific diseases and available treatments.

4. Reach broader audiences through diverse targeting and messaging

While engaging with diverse-owned and culturally focused partners should be a major marketing focus, reaching broader audiences through mainstream platforms is also an important engagement approach. All types of communities frequent major platforms like TV networks, social media sites, radio and search engines, so pharma should maintain its presence across these channels.

Mass media can be an effective strategy for generating awareness and getting patients into the doctor’s office, where pharma companies can follow up with targeted digital media; Data from Phreesia’s third-party measurement partners shows that patients exposed to clinically relevant content at the point of care are 8.3 times more likely to get on therapy. By meeting patients where they are with tailored and creative educational tools and resources, marketers can help increase rates of diagnosis and treatment for underserved populations. 

Learn how Phreesia can help you reach and activate diverse patient groups by delivering tailored health content that addresses their unique needs.

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1. Keep close tabs on patient behavior

2. Tap into technology that supports research workflows

3. Increase convenience for patients

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1. Create and tailor content to key patient demographics

2. Put patients—not physicians—at the center

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