News - DTC Perspectives

Pharmaceutical patient apps are a hot topic among brand teams these days. They hold great promise for a brand across the patient journey, from supporting a dialog with physicians to setting treatment expectations to supporting disease or lifestyle management to providing support to maximize adherence.

Yet, for all its promise, many brand teams have been disappointed with the results of their patient apps, measured in terms of downloads (scale), repeat usage (engagement) and business impact. I’ve witnessed a number of factors that drive this. Among them:

Failing to identify a user real need

Failing to differentiate from competitive apps

Insufficient focus on recruitment

Failing to integrate the app into a wider patient support ecosystem

Failing to maintain the app

These are fundamentally product design and management challenges and they usually result from a failure to plan adequately in advance.

If you are thinking about an app for your band, first remember this: 80-90% of apps are used once and then deleted, according to a study by Compuware. Then answer these seven deceptively simple questions. It can mean the difference between success and failure.

Who are the patient needs we are trying to serve?

Sadly, most pharma apps exist to serve a business purpose. If you are planning an app, make sure you have defined a clear and pressing user need. Market research is a must and ethnography is a great tool to help you discover real pain points in a patient’s experience and in their use of your product.

How will we differentiate?

In the app universe, pharma not only competes against other drug manufacturers but also digital health start-ups and publishers. If the need you seek to fill is already being satisfied, think twice about duplicating it, unless you have a clear plan to provide a significant leap in utility.

Do we understand the drivers of utility?

Most successful apps do a small number of things exceptionally well. Involve patients in the design process to understand which features will give you the biggest bang for the buck. Avoid feature creep.

Do we understand how the app links to our wider support ecosystem?

The best apps out there are a single node of a broader digital ecosystem. All of the pieces fit together. For example, the app is linked to the nurse call center, which is linked to the patient support site. You will avoid the “silo” trap if you set out to design an integrated patient experience, not an app.

How will we drive enrollment?

A scan through pharma app download statistics will reveal a sad truth: most are only seen by a very small percentage of patient populations. To avoid this fate, you need a clear plan to drive recruitment. There are many options here ranging from search, to social network ads, to rep-pull through.

Should we build or partner/buy?

Pharma companies are great at partnering when it comes to licensing medicines, but for some reason when it comes to apps, the tendency is to build versus partner. As a result, a lot of money is wasted creating functionality that already exists or could be built faster, cheaper, and better with a start-up or health publishing partner. Smart Patient and Mango Health are two examples of companies partnering well with pharma.

How do we create a bridge to business value?

The best apps put the user first and provide a compelling, easy-to-use differentiated experience. But they also have a commercial strategy. Whatever your app’s purpose, think creatively about how to drive the behavioral result you desire. Define this “conversion event” and built it into the user experience.

Happy apping!

Republished with permission. Click here to read the original posting on MediaPost.

Gregg Fisher

Over the past 25 years, PatientPoint has established themselves as a leader of patient and physician engagement solutions at the point of care. The company closed out 2016 on a high, with the launch of a new mobile app, PatientPoint 360, as well as the acquisition of MedCenterDisplay. This week, they kept the momentum rolling with the announcement of their new collaboration with the American Heart Association. With a network of over 290,000 healthcare providers, PatientPoint will be able to share the AHA’s public service announcements and educational content on a large scale, further extending the mission to build heart-healthier lives. Senior Vice President of content and creative for PatientPoint, Katie Merz, says that “the collaboration will provide patients in our growing cardiology network access to a powerful resource to help them find the tips, tools—and therapies—to better care for their heart”.

To learn more, visit www.patientpoint.com

Lily Stauffer

It is always fun to hear pundits make predictions. Most of the time they are wrong but we eagerly watch experts tell us who will win elections, how much stocks will rise, what the price of oil will be, and which film will win best picture. We have a media that exists to debate these issues 24/7.

“We have not had such uncertainty since 2009.”
-Bob Ehrlich

So why should I miss out on the prediction game. I really have no way of knowing what will happen in health care, DTC spending or regulation. I do, however, have an informed opinion on where we might end up. So, for what it is worth here goes for 2017.

DTC will continue to thrive no matter what the politicians decry about greedy drug companies. We have the first amendment and DTC generally works well as a promotional strategy. True, Congress knows the drug industry is an easy target. They also know that drug marketing employs lots of people in their districts. So they will huff and puff but in the end not adopt any rules to make drug ads harder to execute.
Trump is a real wild card as far as drug pricing actions. He may threaten drug companies with Medicare price negotiation and actually mean it. On the other hand Trump knows that forcing prices down could hurt jobs and innovation. More likely he will arm twist drug CEOs to pricing self restraint and then tweet his victories.
Obamacare will be drastically altered to be more free market. Mandated coverage will be eliminated and consumers will have more choices what, where and how to buy insurance. Republicans will replace it slowly, however, and be very cautious throwing currently covered Americans off the insured rolls. Free market policies will shift the burden of health care decisions more to consumers and this has numerous marketing implications for drug companies. Price/value will be something drug advertisers must consider in their messaging.
The FDA will get an overhaul to be faster decision makers on new drug approval and hopefully that will include the glacial moving OPDP. Nothing against the generally nice folks who work there but please try doing research that actually gets done in a timely fashion. Also, the social media train left years ago but OPDP cannot seem to accept consumers know how to easily one click to see warnings and risks.
DTC media mix will continue its evolution towards social media and point of care, but nothing indicates that mass media will decline. Drug companies have better mass media targeting tools and that means getting more effectiveness. In fact more specialty brands are using television because the mass awareness, although inefficient, still brings in enough new customers that justify the expense.
Media consolidation is happening in new media. There are starting to be mergers and acquisitions that will eliminate a whole lot of smaller players. Having bigger companies will make it easier to buy larger physician and patient coverage in Point of Care and Internet media. Drug companies like to one stop shop so expect more dollars allocated the easier it gets to buy large scale.
Expect more drug company corporate media and DTC advertising efforts to justify drug prices. There are valid reasons for high prices in most cases, but Americans are perplexed why they pay more than other developed countries. It is a very tough sell but Americans are demanding to know what the premium price is getting them.

2017 will be an exciting year for health care marketers as change always breeds risks and opportunities. We have not had such uncertainty since 2009 when Obamacare was formulated.

Bob Ehrlich

The arbitrary reviewers at FDA have decided that Otezla and Toujeo have music that is disturbing the peace. They have knocked on the walls of Celgene and Sanofi by issuing letters saying their television ads violate the law. How do they know they broke the law?

The beauty of the FDA system is they decide what is distracting. They don’t need to have any objective consumer based evidence of distracting music or rapid scene cuts. I have no doubt these ads pump up the music and fun. The problem, for all of us doing DTC is these two ads are fairly routine for DTC and similar ones have been on air for years. The letters are surprising and must represent some internal decision to get tough. Maybe they are being criticized for lax enforcement because the number of warning letters and untitled letters have come down.

So, they decide to force the drug maker and agency to pull the ad, spend a small fortune re-shooting or re-editing. Judge, jury and executioner. Nice system. Evidence, they don’t need no stinking evidence.

I have seen these ads for months and never once did I think, wow, these ads are distracting and must violate a host of FDA regulations. I guess any ad with music and happy people is now under the scrutiny of FDA reviewers, who apparently have decided to crack down on happy people dancing. I know some in Congress want to go after happy DTC people having sex, but I digress.

As you can tell I do not think much of FDA’s evaluative process. These type of ads have been in vogue for years for many brands. So how slow and low must the music be, how slow the cuts from scene to scene, how long must the supers be? Is dancing limited to one actor, two? None of us know because FDA can decide what is a violation. I am sure Celgene and Sanofi can discuss it with FDA before the sentence is carried out. They have as much chance of a reversal as appealing to a North Korean court after insulting the great leader.

FDA should be forced to have real quantitative research data that supports what they say in their letters. Maybe at the very least a panel of consumers can be brought in to screen ads FDA thinks are problematic. I urge that some system of evaluation be added that can be more objective than a single reviewer. I know the reviewers believe they are acting fairly. I am sure they are bright, hard working folks just trying to do right. But they are arbitrary and inconsistent. That makes it difficult for drug makers to predict how they might react to an ad that is upbeat. For drug makers, what they need is consistency just like we want in an umpire or referee.

Maybe this is FDA getting their last regulatory licks in before the new Trump sheriff comes to town. More letters can be expected if this is how they will approach DTC ad review. Even after 20 years in DTC, the FDA can still surprise me.

Bob Ehrlich

We are likely to see a much freer market for health care under the new Trump administration. What does that really mean for consumers and providers? How might it affect drug companies? And to those of us in DTC marketing, does a free market help or hurt our business?

America is not currently a true free health care market and has not been for over 50 years. Our someone else pays health care system has made users of health care unaware of costs. Is my service or procedure covered is what we ask. What is my co-pay is what we care about. Our providers make more money when they do procedures and tests. Patients readily accept this extra care as long as it is paid by insurers.

Our government has made our system extremely complex with its variety of programs and regulations. Medicare, Medicaid, The VA, HIPPA, The ACA, the 50 different state requirements, and a myriad of other public and private agencies oversee the most opaque system in the world.

What if we went to a free market where what we spend is truly our money and costs matter? Assume the government gives you a stipend through a tax credit or a cash payment. That is what you have to spend on your healthcare subsidized by government. Anything beyond that you pay. Regulations are loosened to allow you to buy whatever insurance you want, anywhere from an approved company in the 50 states. Health care providers must compete on providing quality care at a price people can afford for services they really need.

Drug companies will need to justify price premiums because consumers are now deciding where to allocate their limited available funds. Insurance companies who are competing on offering low premiums will want to squeeze drug companies as much as possible. That means consumers will have many drug coverage options to choose from and they will not pay higher premiums for me-too drugs. DTC advertising will need to deal with price/value issues.

What about people with pre-existing conditions? This is a complex problem. After all, signing up for insurance generally assumes the negative event has not happened yet. None of us get to buy car insurance after we total our car. So what we need is some way to help people with pre-existing conditions to get help on their costs. This is not insurance, it is compassion from society that prevents people from going bankrupt or dying because they cannot afford care. Instead of calling it insurance and forcing companies to cover these folks, it makes sense to create a special high risk pool subsidized by government.

A true free market is a hard but a doable thing to implement over a decade or so. It means treating health care like other consumer products and shifting purchase decisions to the patient. If prices are transparent, and quality measures are readily available for providers, consumers will make rationale choices.

Free markets give consumers incentives to stay healthy as the cost of prevention are lower than costs of treatment. Many critics say health care is a right better managed by government. They may be right as some developed countries do it well. America can go either way but cannot continue its current system which is neither free market or single payer. Under a free market system we would unleash tremendous forces of innovation that could do great things for patients. It will be a hard road to truly get to a real free market but it is worth a try. After all, that “someone else” paying is really us through higher taxes and insurance premiums and deductibles. We are paying higher per capita for health care than anyone else in the world so we must consider real change.

Bob Ehrlich

President-Elect Trump nominated Georgia Congressman and physician Tom Price to head Health and Human Services. This move proves Trump is very serious in his goal of dismantling Obamacare. Dr. Price has offered a plan in the past very different from Obamacare. I think this is move in the right direction and will eventually improve quality at lower cost.

In Price’s plan Americans would have more free market options to shop for coverage. They would be able to buy insurance across state lines, increasing their choices and hopefully getting lower premiums. There would be tax credits for health insurance purchases differing by age. All the government mandates on what a policy must cover would go away.

Consumers could choose a bare bones catastrophic plan or pay for a comprehensive one. Health savings accounts would increase to shift health care decisions to consumers. In Dr. Price’s view consumers would still be able to purchase coverage with pre-existing conditions but at a premium if they currently do not have coverage. His goal is to encourage continuous coverage and not to have people buy insurance only after they are sick.

Dr. Price basically wants to take the Federal government out of the insurance business by creating more options using free markets. Medicare would stay but Dr. Price wants to allow participants some options to go outside of the system. Critics worry that any options to use money outside of Medicare approved providers would weaken the system. Any inkling that Medicare might be privatized scares Democrats greatly. Republicans want to look at options for younger people knowing that Medicare may not be sustainable long term.

Of course Dr. Price will need to alter his past proposals to whatever Mr. Trump and Congress will agree to. There is no evidence Mr. Trump wants to change Medicare. He also has said recently he likes certain provisions of Obamacare on pre-existing conditions and children up to 26 staying on their parent’s policy.

It is very clear that we will see Dr. Price be implementing a consensus plan that reduces Federal involvement and loosens requirements for policies. The Price philosophy is to give consumers more responsibility for their coverage and they will have more involvement in cost/benefit of care. The idea that someone else pays has created much unnecessary care. We have never really had a free market for health care in recent times. A true free market where consumers have transparency in what they are paying for and at what price will help control costs.

The fear that consumers will be without any coverage is overblown. People who currently have coverage on exchanges will likely have several years to convert to the free market system. While it is true that many Americans can now get subsidized coverage, we as taxpayers are footing a high bill that is rising rapidly. Those who buy on the exchanges who are not subsidized are seeing very large premium increases. Things need to change.

Whether the Trump plan is the answer to providing quality care at reasonable prices will be tested. I do know that the Obamacare plan needs to be dramatically changed as it is unaffordable. Trying free market solutions will get consumers to care much more about what medical services they need and at what cost. More involved consumers using their own money will hopefully lead to a wiser use of services and force providers to compete more on price/quality.

Bob Ehrlich

On Tuesday, President-Elect Donald Trump announced his nomination for Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) for Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2010, Rep. Price spoke at our conference and discussed the role of the federal government in healthcare and health insurance. To hear his views on health, and government's place in healthcare watch the video below.

Sign up to receive an article in our weekly DTC in Perspective Newsletter on Friday, December 2nd by DTC Perspectives’ CEO, Bob Ehrlich, discussing what Tom Price's role as Secretary of HHS may look like for our country.

“As head of Health and Human Services, Dr. Tom Price will likely add numerous free market solutions to health care. This will lead to many opportunities for innovation for drug companies in patient engagement.” says Bob Ehrlich, CEO, DTC Perspectives.

DTC Perspectives will have thought leaders explain what Tom Price, Donald Trump, and the as of yet unnamed head of the FDA will mean to your drugs, marketing, and healthcare at our 2017 DTC National Conference. Policy experts and Former head of the FDA Dr. David Kessler will break down what this new administration intends to do that may impact your efforts over the next four years.

The 2017 DTC National Conference will be held April 5-7 at the Westin Copley Place Boston and is the largest annual conference focused solely on direct-to-consumer (DTC) pharmaceutical marketing, which boasts an impressive speaker lineup, awards ceremonies, and business networking.

In addition to groundbreaking case studies and speakers, three prestigious award celebrations will take place at the DTC National Conference: The DTC Hall of Fame, Top 25 Marketers, and Advertising Awards. The Hall of Fame and Top 25 Marketers ceremony, sponsored by Context Media:Health, will take place on April 5 and recognize those individuals who have shaped the DTC landscape. The Ad Awards, sponsored by Health Monitor Network, showcase DTC marketing excellence in a field with multiple constituencies, varying needs and significant communication challenges. Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners will be announced on April 6 during a ceremonial dinner.

The DTC National Conference is a “must-attend” event for pharmaceutical marketers, agency executives, media partners, market researchers, and solution providers. Please visit our website for complete agenda information and additional details and pass information. Interested individuals can register online or by calling DTC Perspectives’ offices at 770-302-6273.

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As pharma marketers continue to expand their footprint in the point of care (POC) channel – a channel where spending is growing at eight-times the rate of television spending – they are realizing not only its potential but the importance of ensuring their messaging mirrors their brand essentials as much as possible. For pharmaceutical brands, the moment of truth happens in the exam room, the “magic moment” when the physician is discussing treatment options with the patient and the prescription is being written.

We encourage pharma partners to view point-of-care as an extension of, not adjunct to, their overall marketing campaign. That’s the mindset needed to unlock the full potential of a pharma brand in the POC channel – and this channel offers lots of opportunities to do just that. First, though, consider POC’s uniqueness and develop strategies and tactics accordingly. Tried and true branding and marketing philosophies are a good place to start.

Consider the setting

We are not the same person when we are watching a television commercial in our basement during a football game as we are sitting in a waiting room in a doctor’s office or wearing a gown in the exam room. We are no longer a consumer of mass media but rather a patient thinking about our personal health. Your creative should capitalize on this environment and mindset.

Let’s look at Crohn’s disease as an example. According to the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America, approximately 780,000 Americans have Crohn’s disease. TV as a medium for advertising Crohn’s treatments has become quite prevalent as of late. While this raises awareness of the condition, or can generate website traffic, given the millions of people watching television, it can be like finding a needle in haystack to reach the target patient suffering from Crohn’s disease. However, consider if that campaign had a strong pull through in physicians’ offices, and not just any physician, but IBD gastroenterologists. Brands could go much deeper with education and dialogue starters to address flare ups, treatments, compliance, etc. This setting encourages meaningful conversations between patients and physicians, and results in a direct correlation to an increase in new prescriptions.

Innovate

As marketers, we strive for a multi-channel marketing plan in which both print and digital play a vital role. The same holds true in the doctor’s office. While the educational brochure is and will remain an influential POC execution, brands have the opportunity to innovate and engage tech-savvy patients who expect innovation in the healthcare arena.

Take the use of interactive 3D anatomical models as an example. With print and TV advertising, patients are pushed a message and but aren’t really interacting with the brand. PatientPoint technology in the exam room is designed to foster interaction with touchscreens and explorations with 3D models that show inside of their body. This accessible interactive tool, also available on mobile for physicians, is unlike anything that has been offered before. Brands can extend their creative to sponsor this content, building innovative brand associations not possible through pushed mass market content.

Be helpful

Patients crave information like never before. 80% of internet users look for health information online, making medical inquiries the third most popular web-based pursuit, following only email and search engine use. Physicians, too, crave information; indeed, it is integral to providing up-to-date meaningful information. They require an endless stream of information to keep up on the latest research and treatment options. In POC, we have the ability to target and validate helpfulness and credibility, which is important since trusting content found on the web is often challenging.

Pharma can be helpful by strengthening the patient-provider relationship through its sponsorship of tools and information that help make complex medical issues easier to explain and understand (especially now that you can’t sponsor pens or hand sanitizers!).

Remember your message

Your brand need not be left at the waiting or exam room door. Pulling through your brand message to a POC execution does not need to be challenging. Assessing creative thoughtfully will help determine if it is a direct pull through or if custom content should be created. We guide our pharma partners through those decisions, helping them see how to create advertising that positions their brands while adhering to established branding guidelines. Bringing that same expertise to the POC channel will ensure the right brand message resonates with patients and physicians.

Be creative

Like other health care touchpoints, POC offers a wide variety of opportunities for creative execution. The National Health Information Awards (NHIA) program, for example, honors leading organizations in the consumer health field. The NHIA program – the most comprehensive competition of its kind – sets the standard for the industry’s educational collateral. Honorees include prestigious organizations like the American Heart Association, Mayo Clinic, March of Dimes, and Parents magazine. At PatientPoint, we’re proud that, over the past 12 years, our point-of-care programs have been recognized by the NHIA with a total of 431 awards, a great honor that brings credibility for our sponsor brands to medical professionals. Your brand can win awards here, too.

Pharma marketers who apply their marketing prowess to POC will reap the full rewards of a channel that offers unparalleled opportunities for deepening relationships with patients and providers, and for delivering the right message at the right time. The best POC program is seamless with TV, print, sponsorships, detailing, and other pharma marketing tools, and takes into account the touchpoint’s unique needs and opportunities.

Linda Ruschau

The Point of Care Communications Council (POC3), an industry association dedicated to advocating for the effective use of the point of care (POC) channel to advance health and healthcare outcomes, recently held its annual meeting in New York to discuss how to elevate healthcare at the POC. Whether we come from clinical, marketing, patient education, or analytics disciplines, we all have the same concern: How to better engage patients using their physical presence at the POC as a core part of their patient journey. Healthcare providers and marketers must “compete” for patients’ attention as digital technology envelops their lives. And, while pharma in general has been conservative about employing new innovations, we understand the need to be part of this (r)evolution and are actively working to adopt new technologies in order to better engage patients both at the POC as well as at other points across their patient journey.

Marketers can target patients along the patient journey, from pre-visit symptom inquiry to post-visit condition research, including those moments of truth in the physician’s office, engaging with them at each critical decision point. POC marketers are leveraging digital technologies to match the individual preferences of their schedules, lifestyles, and preferences for consuming information.

2016 saw a breakthrough of healthcare-compliant technologies. Geo-fencing, with ads and patient education being sent to mobile devices within a highly defined geographic area in and around physician offices, gained traction. Studies show that 50% of patients in the physician’s waiting room use mobile devices[1] and 18% are accessing healthcare information[1], underscoring the value of this immersive moment. Highly specific condition- and/or specialty-related information is often targeted within the office, while geo-fences are extended to broader geographic areas for the delivery of information around conditions affecting larger patient populations.

Targeting messages to desktop and mobile devices complements marketing at the POC by enabling more touchpoints along the patient journey. In particular, contextual, page-level programmatic targeting enables marketers to provide patients with educational content or advertising that is contextually relevant, regardless of whether the information appears on a dedicated health website or via another premium site, including online newspapers and other information sources. This contextual marketing enables marketers to expand their reach and provide patients valuable information whether the patient is in the initial stages of researching symptoms or is educating themselves about a specific condition post-diagnosis.

As we move into 2017, we can expect that healthcare marketers will be designing marketing plans which employ a more comprehensive multichannel approach – evolving from planning models that can often be outdated. This includes relevant and engaging waiting room television programming, interactive exam room tablets, and mobile marketing which combine to mobilize the patient from disease awareness to treatment. Surveys have shown that patients wish to manage their healthcare online[2], enabling the opportunity to engage them more often in-between physician visits. The trend spans all age groups, including 53% of seniors, age 65 or older, who note that they use health technology “at least a few times a month” to manage their health[3].

We anticipate that telehealth will gain prominence as a POC channel. Telehealth is currently poised to realize exponential growth, with a projected jump from 800,000 virtual consults in 2015 to 7 million by 2018[4], reaching a market size of $38B[5]. Supported by changes in legislation and Medicare billing, physicians will use telehealth platforms to see more patients. At the same time, patients appear ready for virtual consults, with recent data showing 80% of patients are open to telemedicine[6]. Marketers will leverage virtual waiting rooms and virtual exam rooms to enrich the patient experience with patient education, brand information and other health-related content.

Innovative virtual reality (VR) applications will continue to develop to both promote patient education and as a clinical tool. While VR is in its initial stage, data show 96% of physicians expressing an opinion that VR engagement can be more valuable than websites and other clinical tools. Other experts forecast VR to be a $150 billion industry by 2020[7]. The VR opportunity to explore patient and provider education through richly immersive therapeutic and behavioral visualizations and enhanced anatomical modeling further supports the trend toward increasingly meaningful and deeply relevant education for patients.

Overall,the POC segment continues to grow at a faster pace than overall DTC spending[8], which itself is firmly back on the rise supporting a steady flow of major drug introductions[9]. The customizable power of POC advertising addresses the trend toward personalized medicine, resulting in more customized communications to targeted patient populations. At the same time, more patients are engaging in healthcare due to an increased prevalence of chronic conditions, an aging population, and greater access to care, placing health and wellness at the top of mind.

As it continues to evolve and expand, the POC channel will remain a highly effective and measurable tool for pharma brand marketers. The return on marketing investment at the POC, whether measuring new prescriptions, conversions, or adherence rates, continues to perform exceptionally well relative to other forms of promotion[9] and with digital innovation, the ability to impact the broader patient journey is greater than ever.

Editor's Note: On Nov. 16, 2016, ContextMedia, the leading healthcare decision platform, announced that it will acquire AccentHealth, which provides best-in-class patient education at the point of care. Click here to read the full news release.

References

1 Accent Health Consumer Connections Panel, 2013

2 https://newsroom.accenture.com/industries/health-public-service/most-patients-want-to-self-manage-healthcare-online-accenture-survey-finds.htm

3 https://www.accenture.com/t20160829T222305__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/PDF-29/Accenture-Silver-Surfers-Continue-to-Make-Waves.pdf

4 http://blog.evisit.com/36-telemedicine-statistics-know

5 http://www.theihcc.com/en/communities/health_access_alternatives/2015-another-unstoppable-year-for-telehealth_i7gjbohl.html

6 http://www.healthitoutcomes.com/doc/of-patients-open-to-telemedicine-0001

7 http://www.aha.org/research/reports/tw/15jan-tw-telehealth.pdf

8 Digi-Capital Forecast, 2015, Confideo Labs Survey 2014 (AH presentation)

9 http://www.zsassociates.com/~/media/files/publications/public/zs-point-of-care-research-executive-summary.ashx

10 http://www.fiercepharma.com/dtc-advertising/pharma-s-dtc-ad-spending-soars-past-5b-2015

Dan Stone

The patient as the consumer. You’ve heard this one before. Additionally, you’ve probably read about how you, as a healthcare marketer, need to view patients through that lens from now on. But how do you actually turn that insight into action? Before answering that question, we should be asking ourselves how accurate the “consumer” label is.

Why consumer?

Tremendous improvements are changing the healthcare landscape to make it more consumer-driven. Since 1990, average life expectancy in this country has increased from 71.8 to 76.4 years for men, and 77.8 to 81.2 years for women. Meanwhile, the uninsured rate in that same period has dropped from 13.9% to 9.1%. The number of physician visits is increasing at a rate faster than the increase in the population of the US.

As a result, patients are spending more than ever, which is one of the primary reasons we, as healthcare marketers, now call them “consumers.” This trend will likely continue: health spending in 1990 accounted for 12.2% of our GDP; today, it accounts for 17.5% of our GDP, and this is expected to grow to 34% by 2040.

Is the label ‘consumer' accurate?

The physician/patient relationship has also changed dramatically, as has the manner in which patients seek information. Calling them “consumers” makes marketers feel they have a handle on delivering this information. However, patients now seek to share in the decision-making around treatment options, and are no longer just taking orders in the exam room. We cannot underestimate the importance of the physician in these decisions. Removing “patient” from our language can do that, because it takes the physician out of the equation.

Additionally, the “consumer” label oversimplifies the complexity of decision-making for patients, and the extent to which they seek input. Patients want to know more than they find in the retail emails they receive. Today, 72% of patients seek information about their healthcare online, 60% turn to friends and family, and 24% get support from others with the same condition. Yes, patients want to make informed decisions, but demand more than a web search or advertising message.

In the past, I’ve promoted the use of the term “Well-Connected Doctor.” As a counterpoint, I’d like to propose that we also adopt the term “Engaged Patient”. Health decisions require more input than almost any other decision we make, and we should treat the individuals who we hope to reach with respect.

How to reach the ‘Engaged Patient'

Back to the original questions: How do we as healthcare marketers, best approach the needs of the Engaged Patient?

Offer Authentic Value to the Patient. The Engaged Patient reads about conditions, seeks communities for support, and has conversations at the dinner table about their health. More than any other group, the Engaged Patient doesn’t want to be sold to. To deliver on the unprecedented desire to present the Engaged Patient with reliable information, we need to accept that there is no easy route to build this trust, and find creative ways to include them in all the relevant inputs.
Leverage Technology. It is our job to understand the complexity with which they seek information, and present it in a meaningful way to patients and physicians. From point-of-care platforms that place us in the exam room during the consultation to online support groups to shared experiences, it is critical to align on messaging across channels, and generate relevant content on a consistent basis.
Address the Rising Health Care Costs by Investing in Outcomes. As marketers, reaching the Engaged Patient is different from reaching other consumers, because patients are subject to a system that does not make it easy to understand pricing, or why costs continue to rise. For healthcare marketers, by identifying health outcomes as a KPI, this means a greater life-time value for each of the patients we can impact.

Republished with permission. Click here to read the original posting on MediaPost.

Ashik Desai

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