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Healthcare: Repeal Now, Replace Later?

June 30, 2017 0

Earlier today, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse sent a letter to President Trump urging him to separate the actions of repealing and replacing healthcare, rather than doing them simultaneously, if there is still no resolution by July 10th. Since not enough progress has been made on healthcare, during an appearance on Fox & Friends this morning the Republican Senator recommended that repeal be handled first and then “have the President ask us to cancel our August state work period and stay here [to] then work on replace separate. We made promises to the American people, we should fulfill them.” Sen. Sasse – who is a supporter of as much repeal as allowable – stated in his letter to the President: “We should include a year-long implementation delay to give comfort to Americans currently on ObamaCare that a replacement plan will be enacted before expiration.” President Trump agrees with the idea of separation, tweeting this morning, “If Republican Senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately REPEAL, and then REPLACE at a later date!”

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PatientPoint Raises $140 Million in Capital to Fuel Its Digital POC Growth

June 30, 2017 0

PatientPoint announced this week that it received $140 million in capital from private investment firms, allowing for significant digital growth in its point of care networks. Serving as a strategic advisor, the Peter J. Solomon Company secured the financing from Searchlight Capital Partners and Silver Point Capital.

A leader in patient education and engagement programs in the point of care space, PatientPoint provides trusted content, which is largely created internally, that is tailored to particular healthcare professionals’ specialties. The programs are offered through a variety of channels, including digital screens in waiting rooms and interactive touchscreens in exam rooms – currently found in more than 31,000 doctor’s offices and 1,000 hospitals across the country. While today’s impact levels reach over a half a billion patient and caregiver visits annually, founder and CEO Mike Collette stated via news release that “by 2019, our goal is to provide programs that can impact 60-70% of brand prescribing volume in the most strategically important specialties.”

Collette, who recently returned to his leadership post at PatientPoint, explained, “We have invested a significant amount of financial and human capital into product development over the past six months to ensure that our programs are truly best in class.” Traver Hutchins, Chief Growth Officer, added, “While much of our growth will be through amplification of existing programs, we will also be solidifying several acquisitions and partnerships that will further strengthen our product offerings. We have also significantly increased our data-driven marketing expertise, allowing us to provide more personalized, relevant communication to patients for a truly enriched healthcare experience.”

The rapid growth of the point of care industry combined with PatientPoint’s innovative patient programs, reliable analytics and insights, management experience, and the trust of healthcare providers, solidified commitments from investors. PatientPoint enhances the healthcare experience for patients and caregivers through its cohesive, end-to-end communication platform, whether it be in the primary care space or complex specialties.

Click here to read the full news release.

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The Impact of Behavioral Coaching on Adherence

June 29, 2017 0

The concept of coaching is pervasive in today’s culture with many popular forms: life coach, fitness coach, personal coach, wellness coach, and behavioral coach. Regardless of the topic, coaches help us to take the next step towards achieving our goals. But understanding the purpose behind behavioral coaching is particularly important as we seek to meet patient needs. Behavioral coaching uses evidence-based clinical strategies and interventions to engage patients in behavior change to better self-manage their health[1]. The ultimate goal is to improve health outcomes, lower risk, and decrease costs[2].

Using behavioral science to address adherence barriers is not new to sponsored patient support; in fact, behaviorally based programs have been around for years. However, the application of live, two-way support to identify barriers in real time and deploy specific messaging, resources and coaching support is on the rise.

Digging into behavioral barriers and their importance

Behavioral coaching encourages a two-way, patient-led conversation to uncover barriers to adherence, express empathy, and offer personal support that results in a collaborative action plan to maximize adherence.

Results demonstrate that frequent, personalized interactions with patients create opportunities to reinforce messages about adherence and allow patients to take an active role in managing their own healthcare. By using behavioral-based techniques, pharmacists and trained contact center agents can help deliver impactful conversations with patients.

Increased financial responsibility for rising healthcare and drug costs is a significant issue. However, most non-adherence is not due to drug cost. It is estimated that 69% of the problem is behavioral, such as perceived benefits, poor doctor-patient relationship, medication concerns, or low self-efficacy[3].

Leveraging behavioral coaching techniques

In order to be impactful, therapeutic class insights can be critical to truly understanding patient needs and delivering support that drives improved outcomes. While each patient’s situation may be unique, our experience in behavioral coaching reveals similarities across therapeutic conditions which can be used to infer best practices in addressing patient challenges across brands and patient populations. For example, sensitive conditions (HIV, hepatitis C) have social implications that may require more empathetic messaging than more mainstream chronic conditions (diabetes, hypertension). Patients with a visible dermatological condition (psoriasis, onychomycosis) often face quality of life issues that may require significantly different support.

Helping to overcome these barriers is individualistic in nature, and takes investment, patience, and experience. Behavioral conversations can identify a patient’s position on their treatment paradigm, help them to clearly define their treatment goals, and create a path to reach those goals with dynamic support provided at every step along the journey.

Alignment of goals between the coach and the patient is one of the most important steps in improving outcomes. Patients are more likely to succeed if goals have personal meaning, as opposed to focusing on achieving an external reward or avoiding punishment. A patient’s active engagement is the key to setting goals designed to help them commit to behave consistently and have greater focus on attaining a goal.

Techniques like active listening and reflective response involve patients digging deeper into their personal barriers, which is critical to help set goals, as well as work towards achieving them. Both techniques require focus and effort. It is more than simply listening in order to reply, but listening to understand – not just the words, but the emotion behind the words, that influence the patient[4].

Patient-centered behavioral coaching is designed to help patients determine the way in which THEY believe they need to change their behaviors to achieve their goals. Patients who feel listened to are more comfortable with the care they receive and are more likely to adhere. The way in which the coach responds is equally as important as listening[5]. A good example is smoking cessation. While a smoker knows that smoking is bad, telling the patient to stop rarely, if ever, encourages them to do so and often forces them to defend the very behavior we are attempting to influence. As a result, the patient resists, and presents arguments to counter the proposed change.

How coaching can build an integrated brand experience

Behavioral conversations are designed to “meet the patient where they are,” but this also can refer to the channels through which patients can be coached. The same patients can be touched across multiple channels to enhance the overall patient experience and outcomes. Paramount to building a consistent, impactful support program is to place the patient needs in the center, then build an integrated experience across channels, internal stakeholders, and budgets. Channels where pharma brands may reach patients through coaching include:

  1. Phone Coaching: Research shows that phone coaching for people with chronic conditions can improve health behavior, self-efficacy, and health status. Planned phone coaching sessions appear to be most effective for improving self-management skills in people from vulnerable groups. Phone coaching services have the advantage of regular contact – helping people develop their skills over time – and the tailored conversations allow the coach to support the patient’s individual needs[6].

Using dynamic, two-way conversations, coaches can identify adherence barriers and provide targeted messaging to help overcome those barriers, connecting with patients using proven health behavior change tools and techniques. This approach can, with proper consent from the patient, also align personalized messaging with a patient’s co-pay program level data, as an example. Recognizing that adherence barriers change over time, as well as patients’ information and education needs, brands can integrate out-bound support and multi-channel communications to maintain personalized support for patients throughout their treatment journey.

Diabetes Coaching Case Study

Adherence Barriers: The life of a diabetic patient is a juggling act to maintain glycemic control: blood-glucose testing, exercise, and diet. Many Type II diabetics struggle with the condition from the point of diagnosis, and consequently have feelings of failure if they progress to an insulin-dependent state. These issues create multiple challenges to medication adherence, and disease and blood-glucose management. It’s easy for these patients to feel out of control with the regimen complexity and the associated long-term complications. Studies show a significant number of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed, which may reduce effectiveness and lead to additional complications. Increasing adherence in diabetic patients is a tri-pronged approach and an important consideration when supporting the patient.

Program Goal: Improve adherence through providing behavioral coaching individualized to the needs of patients segmented on level of engagement. Results demonstrated that patients who were coached were 25% more adherent to therapy vs. control during a 9 month study. This 25% increase in adherence translated to an increased length of time on therapy of nearly 31 days. The primary conclusion proved coaching increases adherence and is effective across all behavioral segments.

Symphony Health Analytics, 2016

  1. Hub Support: Delivering a consistent experience through all patient support programs, from therapy initiation and throughout the patient’s journey, is increasingly important. Many brands have different decision makers leading these initiatives, resulting in a lack of integration between various hub services, patient support programs, and co-pay card vendors. This lack of integration leads to a disjointed patient experience and a missed opportunity to maximize patient impact. Integrating access with adherence is crucial to a patient’s success – and coordinating that support, data integration, and a seamless patient experience, increases patient success.
  2. Specialty Pharmacy: With the dosage complexity and costs associated with specialty medications, pharmacies offer varying levels of patient support. When building a comprehensive patient support program, it is critical for brands to understand how the pharmacies’ approach to patient support compliments its distribution model and patient experience goals. For example, Biologics, one of the leading specialty pharmacies in the country, provides patient support through oncology nurses, who are experts in setting appropriate expectations, providing empathy, identifying psychological challenges, and linking the patient to brand approved resources.

The use of behavioral coaching is growing significantly within oncology to support patients moving from an end of life diagnosis to living with a chronic disease. The unique characteristics of oncology patients present complex challenges that impact the best approach to help patients achieve positive outcomes with emerging, specialty pharmacy treatments.

Improving medication adherence

To effectively combat non-adherence, industry must explore patient-centric approaches that increase adherence rates and improve patients’ quality of life. This requires a shift from short-term initiatives to longer-term strategies, recognizing that behavior change takes time.

Behavioral coaching conversations that leverage powerful tools, such as active listening, open ended questions, and reflective response have consistently increased adherence. These conversations allow patients to dig deeper into their own personal barriers, to help coaches and clinicians set appropriate product expectations, leverage available resources, and develop a plan of action to prevent non-adherence. Ultimately, the strategic balance between patients’ needs and brand goals results in a scalable adherence solution that builds patient engagement, giving brands the ability to optimize patient spend and identify communication strategies most likely to meet the needs of targeted patients.

 

 

References

[1] Huffman M., Miller C. (2015). Evidence-based health coaching for healthcare providers (3rd ed.). Winchester, TN: Miller & Huffman Outcome Architects, LLC. Google Scholar

[2] Judith H. Hibbard and Jessica Greene What The Evidence Shows About Patient Activation: Better Health Outcomes And Care Experiences; Fewer Data On Costs Health Affairs 32, no.2 (2013):207-214 doi: 10.1377/ hlthaff.2012.1061

[3] http://lab.express-scripts.com/lab/insights/adherence/a-new-perspective-onnonadherence; http://healthitanalytics.com/news/69-of-medication-non-adherencedue-to-poor-patient-behaviors

[4] http://www.guilford.com/books/Motivational-Interviewing-in-Health-Care/RollnickMiller-Butler/9781593856120/reviews

[5] http://www.guilford.com/books/Motivational-Interviewing-in-Health-Care/RollnickMiller-Butler/9781593856120/reviews

[6] (Aust Health Rev. 2013 Jun;37(3):381-8).

Amanda Rhodes

DTC in FocusDTC News

How Empowered Nurses are Changing the Pharma Industry

June 28, 2017 0

Nurses today are in an optimal position to help pharmaceutical companies. According to the American Nurses Association, nursing professionals have high levels of trust in terms of consumer perception for the past 15 years, and nursing reliability and expertise is recognized within the healthcare profession.

Yet the critical functions of nurses within the pharmaceutical industry can be easily overlooked in comparison to traditional clinical positions. That’s despite the fact that nurses play vital roles in communicating information both to and from the patient in pharmaceutical settings.

For example, a nurse health coach delivers key information and support to the patient during medication adherence and patient engagement programs. Likewise, nurses on pharmacovigilance (PV) teams process information from the patient, applying their analytical skills and clinical knowledge to improve the safety profile of a drug or device.

Both the patient engagement and PV nursing roles necessitate empowerment and smart decision-making. Research demonstrates that empowered nurses empower patients, resulting in improved outcomes. Nurses within the PV sector need to be empowered to make the best decisions given the information at hand.

Bringing their best work

On a typical day, a nurse on a PV team may receive and review safety information from a variety consumer and healthcare professional sources. Using clinical and analytical expertise, the PV nurse summarizes the information and submits safety data for pharma representatives’ assessment against the safety profile of their drug or device. PV nurses are also a resource for investigative sites with respect to reporting safety information that protects consumers. Soliciting and processing follow-up information is a key responsibility of PV nurses to ensure that pharma companies, regulatory authorities, healthcare professionals, and patients have complete information regarding the safety of consumer drugs and devices.

At every step of the way, PV nurses should be empowered to do their best work. This starts with their clinical expertise. I encourage the nurses on my team to build upon their clinical experience to better understand disease processes or conditions beyond what is apparent at the “surface level.” As part of that process to dig deeper, nurses need to understand the gray areas and be prepared to navigate murky waters. That involves knowing what is important to extract from the data they receive and applying the right analytical skills, in addition to using their clinical background knowledge.

What’s the benefit?

While in a conventional sense PV nurses may not be considered for their significant role in disease education and awareness, they certainly serve a crucial role as protectors of the consumer. Their work affects research processes and outcomes that will influence disease or condition management in the years to come. The work done and the information processed by the PV nurse have the power to improve drugs and devices, change clinical practice, and improve patient safety outcomes.

In the end, nurses within every role — whether pharma or clinical, health coaching or PV — play a vital role in our healthcare system. Pharmaceutical companies should leverage the vast experience and knowledge nurses can bring to the table. Empowered nurses are powerful agents of change that have positive effects on the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries, and within society at large.

 

Dr. Adele Mueller PhD MSN RN

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The Right Time and Right Place for Print

June 28, 2017 0
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As patient centricity continues to become the industry priority, the need to get the right information to the right patients at the right time in the right format is more important than ever—especially for pharma.

Our recent white paper touched on the disconnect patients feel with pharma companies. Today, only 9% of patients say pharma does all it can to help.1 That is, if these patients even know who the pharma companies are: Nearly 40% of patients don’t know any of the companies behind their treatments.2

I’d venture to guess, however, if pharma companies offered these patients the information they needed, in the format they desired, at each point in their healthcare journey, those stats would quickly change. They are for our clients, at least, who are leveraging a variety of our point-of-care solutions.

No marketing campaign is complete today unless it covers a variety of channels – digital, social, mobile and, yes, even print. We know different media will work more effectively for different demographics and different locations and different specialties. That’s why the PatientPoint solution set features the widest range of channels in the POC market; each is meant to maximize the meaningful impact pharma brands can have on patients.

Take, for instance, a 50-year-old man waiting to see his urologist. It’s unlikely he’s willing to grab a brochure on ED in front of others in the waiting room. But he will watch a digital screen displaying a segment on his condition. Once he gets into the exam room, we know he prefers more in-depth printed pieces he can read and refer to later when deciding on treatment.

How to communicate with your target audiences doesn’t need to be an either/or decision between print and digital. Both are perfect complements to each other – and both are necessary to a holistic, satisfactory patient experience.

That’s why I’m always surprised when I read articles declaring print as a communication of the past. It’s certainly not true in our industry – just ask our clients who are using our print program as part of their multi-channel marketing strategy and seeing great results (as in +12.5% incremental NRx).

Print remains a vital part of the patient experience and an important connecting point to both patients and physicians:

  • More than half of patients rank printed brochures or booklets that give disease or drug information as the most useful communication method3
  • 55% of HCPs say they rely on printed communications when talking with patients over any other form of communication4

Having your brand be a part of trusted materials a physician hands to his or her patients offers a unique level of credibility and implied endorsement. It also shows you’re considering many patients’ personal preferences, which will help relieve some of that disconnect patients are feeling, which I mentioned earlier.

In the end, what matters most is the experience created for patients. A communication strategy that combines a variety of media offering highly relevant, personalized content will ultimately power the greatest effectiveness.

 

References

  1. MM&M, “Patient Engagement: All Grown Up—Patient Engagement Comes of Age,” 2015
  2. Ed Miseta, “Patient Survey: Tech Use Up, Pharma Disconnect Remains,” Clinical Leader, 2017
  3. eyeforpharma/Health Perspectives Group report, 2017
  4. Marc Iskowitz, “In health education, providers prefer paper: study,” MM&M

 

Linda Ruschau

DTC in Focus

Five Strategies for Pharma Engagement on Social Media

May 31, 2017 1

Here’s the big question: How does an industry with regulatory constraints around how it communicates with the public successfully engage on social media through robust, timely, and helpful interactions?

There’s not a simple answer, but creating clear and consistent “rules of engagement” can make for a good first step forward.

As a digital and social media strategist for C3i Healthcare Connections, I help pharma clients build out their social presence and extract meaningful information that can be gleaned from social media. While ongoing monitoring of conversations is a key component of any pharmaceutical brand’s social strategy (see my previous article here), companies need to be well-equipped to participate in those conversations, too. Five broad steps can help you get started.

  1. Develop engagement strategies

Take the time to outline your plan of attack, along with the ways your team can apply these principles to their everyday interactions. Doing so will benefit everyone involved by making operations more efficient and streamlined, your customers more satisfied, and your brand more favorable.

Start by assessing the engagement opportunities available to non-regulated industries and rule out those activities which regulations prohibit, such as providing off-label information, soliciting or prompting users to share content that might lead to off-label questions, and recommending or directly promoting the use of a product to a user. After implementing compliance safeguards for handling Adverse Events (AEs), Product Quality Complaints (PQCs), and Privacy Violations (see this article), you can begin to develop your own engagement strategies and practices.

As part of this process, you should:

  • Work with key stakeholders — including marketing and branding, public relations, medical information, and pharmacovigilance — to identify the objectives of engagement
  • Be prepared to identify and report any AEs and PQCs on owned properties (e.g., branded or unbranded Facebook Pages) and any properties over which the pharma company has control or influence
  • Evaluate the current social media space and your role in it
  • Develop workflows and escalation guidelines, perhaps considering third-party technologies that help streamline workflows and support operational evaluation
  • Establish community guidelines — besides guidelines for posting and commenting, this may include a statement that explains the purpose of the property, links, and contact information
  1. Be consistent … but human and flexible, too

After you’ve decided to move beyond monitoring and begin engaging on social media, many companies often start with a simple first-step strategy of responding to AEs and PQCs with a “contact-us reply.” For example: “Hi Sarah. Thank you for bringing this to our attention. We take product safety seriously and are interested in learning more about your experience. Please call us at 800-555-5555.”

A standardized “contact-us reply” can sometimes feel robotic. While remaining consistent is important, it’s equally necessary for brands to consider how to bring the human element to their interactions. Beyond AEs/PQCs replies, teams can add a personal touch by taking the initiative to respond to on-label inquiries or consumer sharing of experiences: “Thank you for sharing, John. We’re glad that you’re taking steps to manage your health.”

Being more human means listening carefully to what is being asked and acknowledging what has been stated. Text can be difficult to interpret sometimes, but you can take cues from emojis, emoticons, and images. While providing accurate on-label information is critical, so too is the emotional tone of an interaction, especially in the sensitive area of health.

  1. Establish KPIs

If something can be observed, it can be measured. Two kinds of key performance indicators (KPIs) help assess the performance of your interactions and resource needs of your initiatives. They are productivity KPIs and volumetric KPIs.

Productivity KPIs include metrics such as:

  • First Response Time — the time between the consumer’s first contact and the company’s first response for all engagements over a period of time
  • Response Time — the total time from the consumer’s first contact and the company’s last response
  • Handle Time — the time from the consumer’s first engagement and the completion of all tasks required to process a case
  • Resolution Rate — the ratio of the number of resolved posts to the number of those that needed resolution

In today’s world, consumers expect swift responses. In an ideal world with infinite resources, response times on social media could be less than a minute. In reality, however, resources can limit optimal response times. Establish your initial KPI standards based on the number of people on your staff, hours of labor, and average number of posts per hour they can handle. Often vendors can assist in the heavy load of supporting customer care in cooperation with your company.

Volumetric KPIs might include the total of all posts in a given period for a given property (e.g., total Facebook posts in May), or the volume of posts for which the company responded, which can be further organized by type of post (AEs, PQCs, product inquiries, etc.). Third-party technologies can assist with these KPI measurements, although some are better suited for monitoring and reporting, while others are built to support consumer care and interaction. Your technology selection depends on the objectives of your engagement strategy.

Besides supporting the initial stages of your engagement efforts, tracking KPIs after they have been established helps to identify areas of improvement and opportunities within your operations.

  1. Prepare for the unexpected

No matter how refined your social strategy, there are always surprises. While you can’t control unexpected events, you can prepare for them.

Before launching your social media initiative, carefully document the process for escalating an issue depending on the situation presented. Establish escalation criteria and communication protocols to avoid last-minute panic. Be transparent, and continually monitor the situation until it resolves.

Keep in mind that a response isn’t necessarily an answer. Make sure your teams can distinguish legitimate consumer concerns from spam content. If a consumer posts an inquiry and an immediate answer is not available, it’s OK to acknowledge the question and inform the consumer that he or she will receive a follow-up response. Suggesting a private message can be another effective way to handle, or public responses that benefit the community.

  1. Evaluate performance, apply insights, and adjust practices

In social media, as in any initiative, there is always room for improvement, refinement, and course-correction. For example, if average response and handle time goals are not being met, is it due to a lack of staffing (a volume issue), or a need to coach your representatives? On the flip side, if response times are quicker than anticipated, are there other activities that can be added to the initiative, such as improving the quality of responses?

A big advantage social media has over traditional media is the ability to more immediately measure and evaluate the performance of content. As experience is gained and insights are gleaned, proceed to evolve from a passive/reactive model to an active approach that seeks out opportunities for engagement.

Consumers are eager to receive information and support from all parties in the healthcare system. Those pharma companies or brands that have established the foundations for social media processes and, ultimately, build up to higher tiers of engagement, not only have a greater opportunity to meet or exceed patient expectations — they’re also able to earn long-term trust and favorability among patients.

Phil Baumann

DTC in FocusDTC News

The Right Moment to Take Your Brand to the Man

May 31, 2017 0
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In light of the upcoming Men’s Health Month in June, I thought it relevant to talk about one of the biggest challenges pharma marketers have come to PatientPoint for help with: how to engage men and get them talking about their health. While George Clooney has always been my ideal target, for pharma brands, the challenge is getting their message to men at the most impactful moments when they are willing and ready to act. Those moments are rare.

According to a recent survey, in the last year,1

  • Almost one-fourth of all men had not seen a doctor
  • 1 in 3 men had no regular doctor
  • More than half had not gone in for a routine checkup

Further, nearly seven out of 10 men with advanced prostate cancer ignore their symptoms.2 These statistics are not just shocking, but concerning. That’s why we fully support movements like Men’s Health Month and organizations like the Movember Foundation that speak to men in a way that gets their attention and encourages them to take better control of their health.

These initiatives represent a huge opportunity for pharma brands to be involved in the conversations happening outside of the doctor’s office. But I want to focus on what, I believe (and is in my sweet spot), is an even greater opportunity—inside the doctor’s exam room. It’s here where men’s attention and willingness to engage has peaked; they are in a private space and can be vulnerable about even the most sensitive conditions. They’re attuned to their health, and they’re ready for the right information from their physician and you.

Our presence in the exam room with the PatientPoint urology educational program has shown us the exact type of messaging that resonates with a male audience to get them to speak up. My recommendations:

  1. Spark a conversation

While many initiatives are catchy and get men to think about their health, the most important conversation happens inside the physician’s exam room between the man and his doctor. That’s the conversation that leads to action—and prescriptions. Being present in exam room educational materials that men can peruse while waiting for the doctor to enter primes the conversation about to happen. Topics like erectile dysfunction or prostate problems aren’t easy to bring up. Our brochures offer men starter questions and discussion prompts to get the conversations going.

  1. Catch his attention

A brand in a plethora of many isn’t going to catch anyone’s eye. Category exclusivity should be a crucial component of your marketing strategy in the exam room to ensure your brand is the only brand the man sees.

  1. Tell him what to do

More than half of men say they find great value in information available when deciding what drug to take—so tell him! Offer a discussion guide that men can use to start talking with their doctor, provide calls to action that prompt men to ask the doctor about a specific topic or bring attention to symptoms that may lead to a better, more productive discussion with the doctor, and better health outcomes overall.

Helping enrich that discussion keeps you top of mind at the moment of script and reinforces your brand when men are at home or with their partner reviewing the brochure they took from the exam room: 68% of men strongly agree it’s their responsibility to inform themselves about the medicine their doctor recommends.3

There’s no greater opportunity for pharma brands to make an impact on men and drive greater effectiveness than in the exam room. Make sure your brand is the only solution top of mind when men are actually ready to take action about their health and talk to their doctor.

 

References

  1. Commonwealth Fund survey
  2. The International Prostate Cancer Coalition, Bayer HealthCare, Harris Poll—Prostate Cancer Symptoms Survey
  3. ID Media, New Realities study

Linda Ruschau

DTC News

Outcome Health’s Closes First-Ever Round of Funding at $5B Valuation

May 31, 2017 0

Outcome Health announced its first-ever round of funding closed at a $5B valuation pre-money from a group of investors, including Goldman Sachs Investment Partners, Alphabet’s growth equity fund CapitalG, Leerink Transformation Partners, Pritzker Group Venture Capital, Balyasny Asset Management, and strategic healthcare stakeholders. According to the news release, the nearly $600 million raised during this round “will fund the company’s continued acceleration as Outcome Health grows from 20% of U.S. physician practices currently to 70% by 2020, and pursues new investment opportunities and international growth.” The leading health decision platform will increase its market share in a variety of point of care settings – including hospitals, health systems, and health practices.

Outcome Health provides tablets and large-format, wall-mounted touch screens which doctors and patients can utilize during their appointment. Among its unique features, the technology provides the largest English-language health library, showcases 3-D models that doctors can move and use for demonstrations, and allows drug ads that share health or Rx information or recruit patients for clinical trials.

Rishi Shah, the Founder and CEO, stated, “Outcome Health and its investors have gathered around a shared commitment to connect ten million exam rooms and billions of moments of care around the world to ensure that patients and doctors can make the best health decisions every time. Together, we have the opportunity to bring healthcare from an age of information to an age of intelligence.”

According to Todd Cozzens, co-founder and Managing Partner at Leerink Transformation Partners, one of the investors, “Outcome Health is redefining the way that the life sciences, payers, healthcare IT, physicians and patients interact. The technology enhances the most important event in the delivery of care – the trusted moments where the doctor and patient make decisions about their conditions and treatments – and represents innovation that we are proud to support.”

Shah explained to Forbes in an exclusive interview, however, that Outcome Health is not simply in the point of care market, but rather has a broader reach in the healthcare industry, especially as it continues to fuel its significant growth. In addition to working with healthcare professionals and patients, the Forbes article noted how Outcome Health also works “on businesses for healthcare providers and with Medicare on new payment models. With the new funding, the company can pursue more aggressive acquisitions in the months to come, as well as invest in startups that might want to create content or build applications to house on Outcome’s content network.” As Shah told Alex Konrad and Matthew Herper, “We’ve created a multi-sided network that gives payers and life science companies a seat at the table. They can help doctors and patients make the best decision every time.”

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DTC News

Mesmerize Marketing Acquires Doctors’ Office Wallboards from Elite Sampling & Media Group

May 31, 2017 0

Mesmerize Marketing will increase their Healthy Living Network by more than 70% with the recent acquisition of Elite Sampling & Media Group’s national network of doctors’ office wallboards. The positions Mesmerize Marketing, a leader in patient education at the point of care (POC), as the “largest provider of static media in high prescribing physicians’ offices” reaching more than 50,000 physicians nationwide.

Image c/o Marketwired & Mesmerize Marketing

The Healthy Living Network provides multilingual editorial content in specialty practices, targeting specific patient populations – including diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, women’s health, pediatrics, mental health, cardiology, oncology, and infectious disease. This also expands upon Mesmerize’s current reach with mobile technologies, such as WiFi, geofencing, and NFC beacons.

According to the news release, Mesmerize founder and CEO Gregory Leibert noted that the company is “excited to increase our scale to be able to provide our clients with access to thousands of more high-prescribing physicians and millions of more patients.  Static media remains vital to the point of care landscape.” Nick DeBellis, President of Elite Sampling and Media Group, LLC added that “over the past year Elite and Mesmerize have collaborated on several successful wallboard campaigns. That joint venture lead us to see the strength in the size of a combined wallboard network. Therefore, we decided to leave our wallboard clients in excellent hands with Mesmerize. We know that static media at the point of care has an important role in the patient education process.”

Click here to read the full news release.

admin

DTC News

Understanding the DTC Shift in the Healthcare Industry

May 12, 2017 0

Feel that? That’s the seismic shift happening right now in the healthcare industry. Over the past twenty years, several distinct market trends have emerged across the healthcare landscape. Now, these trends have arrived – and they’re only gaining more traction.

The Affordable Care Act facilitated many of these changes, including an influx of digitally savvy customers hungry for education. And although its survival has recently been called into question by a new administration, the ACA’s impact will undeniably live on.

These conditions point to more than a shift in demographics and behavior. They also indicate a new model of healthcare consumerism: one that pivots away from a broker-driven B2B model and more toward a straight DTC model.[1]

If this seems like déjà vu, it’s because the same shift occurred in the property and casualty (P&C) insurance industry just a few decades ago, with auto insurance sales leading the way.

The consumer largely drives this new dynamic in the healthcare industry. So to understand the DTC shift in the healthcare industry, let’s start by understanding the modern healthcare customer.

What Does the Modern Healthcare Customer Look Like?
To start, they’re technologically savvy.

Healthcare customers don’t just understand technology, they prefer it. This means they tend to have less patience for processes that lack a technological edge. They’re getting more information, from more places, in less time. Are you keeping up?

In a snapshot, today’s healthcare consumer is…[2]

  • Always connected. They’re using multiple devices and channels, often at the same time.
  • Socially minded. They’re using social channels for gleaning insights and reviews from family, friends, and experts.
  • Knowledgeable. They’re independently educated with content available to them 24/7 (and they’re also in-tune with your competitors).
  • Experiential. They’re expecting a personalized experience, and one that will knock their socks off.

The modern consumer is looking for (and finding) content primarily on digital channels. If you want to reach them, you must do so online. In fact, of today’s healthcare consumers…[3]

  • 67% are interested in being offered insurance via mobile.
  • 48% regard product advice on social media as important.
  • 54% use mobile phone apps for the purpose of health monitoring.

As healthcare consumers become more and more technologically savvy, they become more accountable for their healthcare decisions. Consumers are moving beyond “sick care” and toward an overall health and wellness agenda. It’s an opportunity for healthcare organizations to facilitate their goals and establish trust with new and existing customers.

So by using technology to stay connected, simplify healthcare processes, and provide a way to help people monitor their health, healthcare companies can attract and retain this emerging class of healthcare consumers.

After all, this is a familiar trend – one that occurred even earlier in the auto insurance industry.

The Auto & Health Insurance Parallel
In the early 2000s, about 80% of personal automobile insurance policies were placed through a broker.[4] But as consumers shifted toward online shopping and insurance agencies moved toward a DTC sales model, dynamics started to change.

Between 1995 and 2011, the overall number of P&C insurance agents declined by 10%.[5] Even more illuminating, P&C insurance carriers increased their marketing spend from $1.7 billion in 2002 to $5.9 billion in 2011.[6]

These growing investments have moved the focus away from individual agents and toward the carrier brand. So when asked, “Who is your insurance carrier?” a policy holder will now likely respond with a brand name over an agent’s.

Today, auto insurance providers continue to spend more to reach customers through multiple channels. And there’s no better case study to demonstrate this shift than the P&C insurance giant, GEICO.

In 2010, GEICO became the first auto insurance organization to provide mobile users with the ability to quote and buy a policy right on their smartphones.[7] More recently, GEICO was the lead sponsor for Amazon’s new original content streaming service.

Translation: GEICO is evolving to fit their consumer’s lifestyle. And by doing so, the industry pioneer has actually overtaken Allstate in premium sales.[8]

That’s a tremendous shift in the auto insurance industry – one that could soon be replicated in other industries, like health insurance.

Who Will Be the Breakout Player?

While the health insurance industry has yet to match the dramatic transformation seen in the auto insurance space, it’s trending in that direction.

In 2014, only one health insurance provider found its way on the list of insurance companies with the highest share of media spend. Coming in at number nine, UnitedHealthcare was that organization, but it trailed significantly behind top P&C insurance carriers.

Fast-forward one year, and UnitedHealthcare still stood as the lone health insurance industry provider on the list. Yet this time, it had climbed to number seven, increasing its media spend by over $20 million.

Share of insurance industry U.S. measured-media spending

2014

Source 1

2016

Source 2

Will UnitedHealthcare’s spending trigger other health insurance providers to spend more on marketing to the modern consumer? Only time will tell.

There’s ground yet to be covered, but the parallel between the auto and health insurance industries evolutions is undeniable.

Making Up the Gap
As demonstrated, the healthcare industry is not the only industry affected by this fundamental market shift; it’s just one of the slowest to react.

Of all surveyed industries, the following percentage of respondents agreed they are developing new applications, features, and processes to cater to new generations of customers:[11]

  • Healthcare – 61%
  • Travel – 64%
  • Telecom – 74%
  • Retail – 76%
  • Financial Services – 73%

A major gap exists between what consumers want from health insurance providers, and what they can actually offer them.

To reach today’s healthcare audience, companies need to cater their outreach to the digital-savvy consumer who’s searching for tools to interact and educate themselves with.

If the classic mantra “Be Where the Customer Is” holds true, then organizations should expose these tools less to the broker, with whom the emerging consumer may be unfamiliar, and more toward the consumer themselves.

While not every customer will have a linear experience, brands should be prepared at every stage of the buyer’s journey. To help with this, we’ve compiled the questions here that marketers need to continually ask to stay in-tune with this new consumer.

Save this guide (we recommend keeping it right next to your desk) and use it as a self-assessment for your brand. As you navigate the new consumer-focused world of healthcare marketing, every bit of help counts.

References
[1]PwC Health Research Institute, “Healthcare reform: Five trends to watch as the Affordable Care Act turns five,” March 2015. http://pwchealth.com/cgi-local/hregister.cgi/reg/pwc-hri-aca-five-year-anniversary.pdf

[2] Andrea Moneta, “The Digital Insurer: The Customer-centric Insurer in the Digital Era,” Accenture, 2014. https://www.accenture.com/t20150523T033833__w__/sg-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_9/Accenture-The-Customer-Centric-Insurer-In-The-Digital-Era.p

[3] Ibid

[4] McKinsey&Company, “Agents of the Future:The Evolution of Property and Casualty Insurance Distribution,” June 2013. https://www.iiaofil.org/Portals/0/Documents/FutureAgents_V_FINAL.pdf

[5] Ibid

[6] Ibid

[7] GEICO, “GEICO’s Story from the Beginning,” retrieved February 23, 2017. https://www.geico.com/about/corporate/history-the-full-story/

[8] Steve Daniels, “Geico Overtakes Allstate As No. 2 Auto Insurer,” Advertising Age, March 3, 2014. http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/geico-overtakes-allstate-2-auto-insurer/291947/

[9] Advertising Age, “2016 Marketing Fact Pack,” December 21, 2015. http://adage.com/d/resources/resources/whitepaper/2016-edition-marketing-fact-pack

[10] Advertising Age, “2017 Marketing Fact Pack,” December 19, 2016. http://adage.com/d/resources/resources/whitepaper/2017-edition-marketing-fact-pack?utm_source=AA1&utm_medium=AA&utm_campaign=AA

[11] Melanie Matthews, “Infographic: State of the Consumer Healthcare Experience,” Healthcare Intelligence Network, January 27, 2017. http://hin.com/blog/category/customer-service/

Tom Pitcherella

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