Posts tagged "empowerment"

I was once told across a crowded meeting room that maintaining the divide between business and personal life is important. “It’s business, not personal” still rings in my ears today.

Now I am part of our own agency, I feel I can stand back with a little more authority and give thought to this mantra.

The idea that what I do during the ‘day job’ is very different to who I am on the weekend, is one I have at times aspired to but never really succeeded at. I find it impossible not to be worried at home by worrying office stuff, or for a successful workday not to give me the foundation for a great evening out with my mates. Thus far the flick of the switch on the No. 38 to Angel has eluded me.

The strongest and best relationships we have are ones where we allow ourselves to be human, working alongside other humans, who worry, laugh, err and create… whether that’s at home discussing broad beans or striving for patient-integrated Rx strategy.

Being ourselves and keeping it personal was built into the agency culture from our earliest plans. The business side made Barclays happy and ensured we had rigour and efficiency. But by valuing personality we don’t break people down and rebuild them the ‘hive’ way, or force a process on a relationship. All actors are free to contribute ‘their’ way adding to what we are as an organisation.

What we want most is for people to say that we understand them at a personal level: what they want, where they plan to be, what they love, what they don’t - not just the business of the brand, political situation and process.

Because of this our business could never be anything other than personal.

A Cambridge University academic is leading a call to dispense with medical jargon in favour of everyday language. Dr Melinda Lyons claims in the Lancet that patients can get dangerously confused by unfamiliar and similar-sounding terms (intra vs inter; hypo vs hyper), particularly in stressful and noisy situations.

This is something to be grateful for, because it’s more proof that healthcare is becoming more patient-focused. While not without its challenges, communication built on the needs and expectations of the end user is clearly the way forward. Dr Lyons’ work, and the fact her research featured in the morning Metro, reminds us that everyone has a stake and a growing interest in what happens in the healthcare world.

But it also reminds us that people aren’t the same. Words that are necessary to one person may patronise another. At Hive we play our part by first understanding who the end user is. Only then can we get the dialogue right between that person and the person looking after them. We do this by letting the HCP know more about who’s in front of them.

It’s a subtle thing, joining the dots between different mentalities and creating proper engagement, but it’s not new in marketing. Without the correct delicacy however, you get a fumbling disaster which tries too hard and fails.

So, between the patronising and the ancient Greek, lies a tone of voice that resonates. Finding it is a beautiful thing.

A recent comment from a client made me think about how pharmacists act as brand enhancers for patients/consumers.

Pharmacists are highly educated healthcare professionals. Patients have long relied on their valuable skills and used their advice to make a purchase. However, it has been traditional for organisations to communicate with them principally in business terms. This retail-led approach creates dissonance between the relationship pharmacy has with a brand’s manufacturers and the one they have with the brand’s users.

The new Contract, however, changes things. Although the uptake of enhanced services seemed slow to begin with, pharmacy’s growing relationship with patients is now much in evidence. (As it is with other HCPs: the growing weight of pharmacy has strengthened links with prescribers.) With almost 2 years since the independent prescriber act, there are far better opportunities to be had than talking “stock pressure and profit on return”.

Instead, manufacturers who understand and enhance the close relationship between pharmacist and consumer will gain more end-user engagement. A recent study showed that when pharmacists intervened in the sale - not by recommending, but by providing an informed brand initiation - patient compliance increased and patients were more likely to make a repeat purchase. Proof that what can be good for profits can be great for patients.

As the professional identity of the pharmacist sinks in, their challenges revolve around setting the clinical scene and promoting new services to patients. Pharmaceutical companies must continue to track areas of progress and deliver a rounded offer that benefits in-house experts and their patients.

A recent post about the rise of the informed patient attracted some insightful comments. Dr J got me thinking about knowledge, responsibility and a few things in between.

Patient education is a good thing and we need more of it. The EMEA roadmap for 2010 promises more access to accredited medical information. Ideally this will help override the reams of flimsy information that, as Dr J points out, are in abundance.

I think the EMEA have their work cut out for them. How much information do people need for a start? Is it OK to broadcast an advert simply telling people to be more active, or do we need a clearer link to the real consequences of obesity? And what if we overload people with information - will we scare them into doing the wrong thing? Will they just stop listening?

What really alarmed me was Dr J’s comment that, even when patients know their onions, they often balk at decision time. Perhaps we know enough, but we’d still like to blame someone else if things don’t work out. Or is it the other way round - are we being urged to take more responsibility for our treatment, but don’t have enough insight to make decisions?

There’s a great take-out from this: We must be on the ball if our minds are boggling with the same question that patients’ are. What we all want to know is: how do we embrace patient empowerment without compromising medical integrity?

Looking forward to your thoughts on this one.