Posts tagged "communications"

Our ever loving ears hearken once more to the digital pitter patter of patient empowerment.  UCB Pharma have partnered with patientslikeme.com to bring an Epilepsy community to the site.

Patientslikeme.com is a privately owned initiative that encourages patients to post details about themselves. This real world, outcome-based data is shared with individuals and organisations who work to improve health outcomes, including pharmaceutical companies, research organizations, and non-profits.

30% of epilepsy patients are refractory to treatment, so this move is good news for patients, HCPs and even competing Pharma. Over 37,000 patients are already registered on the site as well as 3,000 caregivers. Any epilepsy community should include the voice of caregivers, as a significant proportion of epilepsy sufferers are elderly or have learning disabilities.

Patientslikeme.com doesn’t just collect data from patients, it provides quality information and allows them to blog and communicate with peers. It’s a site that really does seem to have patients’ interest at heart. That’s why we like it – and so congratulate UCB for being a part.

Sitting down this week with a group of nurses led me to give some thought to the types of work they do and the role they have.

Nurses have long been considered the ‘touchy feely ones’, with GPs dealing with the pragmatics of  prescription and referral. As the UK system evolves it increasingly requires a different, more-doctor-like-nurse, with changes in responsibility, remit and patient influence. Resulting in less time to do what is often considered a foundation of nursing – care. Alongside this evolution, sits a fundamental patient requirement to still have ‘caring’ held high. I believe we still need to place value on someone who is willing to sit and explain what we have missed, didn’t understand or are just worried about. It strikes me that these two requirements can be often at odds.

Our role as communications guys needs to evolve to help bridge this divide between the demands of the structure and that of the patient. In the old days it was enough to target this group as an advertising audience, whereby we would fight for share of voice in the b2b journals. We spent time defining key messages, and shouting them, thinly veiled ad ideas, carrying key messages, kept front of mind, alongside a hope that they would somehow be spewed up during the all important consultation.

In this new world, we need to leap forward and try to understand them not as consumers of journals, and message parrots, but as partners and conduits to driving a better patient experience. This requires a very different approach, and a need to evolve from top down parasitic paternalism to sharing values of partnership, respect, and mutual understanding. I think we  need to ask ourselves - how might our brands catalyse their talent? Rather than how best might we use them to our advantage.