Patient centricity is a big idea that can help the healthcare industry adapt to a very different political, economic and competitive environment. As welfare systems reform and technology disrupts the industry, the clear objective for politicians, payers and physicians will increasingly be how to create the most value for patients at the lowest cost. And this means being patient focused.
JAMES OSMOND CEO, CLEAR
THE PROBLEM WITH PATIENT CENTRICITY nfortunately, much of the investment in patient centricity currently underway fails to make a tangible difference to patients’ lives or company bottom lines.
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here are numerous patient T portals that are absent of genuinely patient focused content. ▪▪ Tools to aid patients often extend little further than simple dosing cups. ▪▪ The application of new technologies and channels usually involves replicating old practices in new channels under the label of patient centricity. For instance, sales reps have been known to turn up armed with an iPad, only to reveal an old detail aid but on a smaller screen. ▪▪
In many ways, the healthcare industry is like the financial services industry was 3-4 years ago: it talks about customer centricity without fundamentally changing the customer experience. In our experience working across the globe in OTC, pharmaceutical and health services, there are a number of reasons why patient centricity so often fails to live up to its promise.
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An overemphasis on product in marketing. This is understandable given the importance of selling pills, devices and treatments, but it risks missing how value will be created in the future. As in any market, price will become a key differentiator unless new forms of value are created. Branded drug companies therefore need to create valuable experiences for patients that go beyond the product and into supportive services. This means the focus needs to be increasingly upon compliance, patient and physician education and extended support services. Siloed operations. Many healthcare companies are not connecting ideas and creating value across geographies, therapy and practice areas. Too often good practices and experiments in one country or division are not shared across the business to improve collective performance. This is reinforced by an organisational structure built around what we do rather than what patients want. Segment prioritization. Healthcare marketing has become far more sophisticated over the last decade.
B A R C L AYS B A N K CASE STUDY When working with Barclays Bank we helped them to view their true market as helping people to borrow and buy, not selling credit cards. This helped to identify new opportunities to create value in peer to peer payments. In healthcare, taking a step back and remembering that we are in the business of helping people to get and stay well - not pill manufacturing or patient processing - will help us spot new opportunities to create value for patients.
Patient and physician profiling and segmentation tools have been applied to help companies decide where to focus their messaging. However, this inevitably means that many physicians are ignored. This matters when they can more easily share their negative views through social media. Using sales as the key metric for rewards. In many organisations the key measure of performance is short term sales. Whilst this is understandable given the commercial realities of listed companies, it distracts attention from the metrics that drive success and create greater value in the longer term: metrics that are more focused on what value means for patients. Patient centricity isn’t working because in most instances it isn’t even happening. It can only occur when we physically re-build companies, propositions, experiences and networks around the patient and their needs. This is daunting and difficult. However in our experience there are some ways to make it easier and reduce the risks of change.
A major point of differentiation occurs when you start to see and define the customer journey in the same way a customer does USAA CASE STUDY USAA is a financial services provider for the US Armed Forces. Their purpose is to serve those that serve us. This clear focus on making the lives of the armed forces and their families easier led them to create the first smart phone cheque deposit application. They did this because they realised that with customers serving oversees in remote locations, depositing cheques can be very difficult.
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This means being clear on… 1. What business are we really in? When working in the vitamins and minerals market it was essential to look at the whole range of activities that people undertake to be healthier, not just their behaviour with nutritional supplements. By exploring and understanding how supplements fitted into a broader repertoire of strategies, including exercise, hydration and juice drinks, we were able to identify new opportunities for innovation and how to better organise the category. (See Barclays Bank case study)
2. How to align the energies of your team to one clear purpose. It is hard to generate new ideas for value adding experiences if ultimately the focus is still on selling a pill. This tends to limit thinking to traditional activities. Whether in finance or healthcare, a higher brand purpose can inspire people to think differently about what they are here to do and how they can create value for their customers and patients. (See USAA case study)
3. The total customer journey from the patient’s perspective. A major point of differentiation occurs when you start to see and define the customer journey in the same way a customer does. Air travel does not start at check in but much earlier when considering destinations. Value in this industry has been created through inspiring and simple planning services and through courtesy cabs to the airport, let alone the lounge post check in. Even within flights, Virgin has made the experience more valuable to customers through the simple act of having their captains draw attention to local landmarks as they fly over them. In healthcare, the big opportunity here is to start considering the journey pre-diagnosis and to tie in education, monitoring and advice around prevention into a broader brand experience. The patient journey can be very simply broken down into the four motivations of wellness: ▪▪ avoid getting sick ▪▪ get well ▪▪ get well faster and more easily ▪▪ stay well Everything should be geared around simple substantiated efforts to achieve one or more of these goals. Healthcare businesses have historically focused on the second and third of these motivations, whilst new industries are being created by start-ups, nutrition and fitness companies to address the first motivation. In recent weeks, both Samsung and Apple have made significant announcements about how they intend to use their technology to integrate multiple diagnostic and lifestyle apps
VIRGINIA MASON CASE STUDY Integrated Practice Units combine primary care with multidisciplinary specialists focused on addressing a specific disease or group of related diseases. Using this approach, Virginia Masons Spine Clinic has been able to more than halve lost days at work due to back pain - one of the most prevalent causes of sick days in the USA.
NETFLIX CASE STUDY Netflix gathers and analyses data from all the content that its customers watch to identify underserved segments. In total it has identified 76,897 sub segments or micro genres. In one case they found that viewers of the BBC show ‘House of Cards’ also liked films with Kevin Spacey and directed by David Fincher. This connection led to a category redefining ‘House of Cards’ segment.
to prevent illness and manage wellbeing. For any healthcare business, becoming better integrated across all these motivations within a disease area will be a key way in which the industry can create more value for patients. (See Virginia Mason case study)
4. How to drive insight into the heart of your organisation. This is one of the hardest things to do, as culturally, healthcare companies value hard clinical data rather than qualitative research. In a 2013 study we found that just 18% of healthcare companies felt that they used and communicated insight effectively within their organisation. Professional services companies score almost twice as high. This matters because insight into what patients really think, feel and do across the full patient journey is what creates empathy and clarity on where the opportunities are to create more value for patients. Portals and training alone don’t cut it. A culture inspired by insight is far more effective at putting the interests of patients first. (See Netflix case study)
5. How to treat physicians as people and not just prescribers. Across industries, the old segmentation model of prioritizing one big segment and tailoring messaging to them is being superseded by a micro segmentation approach where a sales rep can personalize each sales visit and connect effectively with all segments. Understanding what each micro segment of customer really values can improve relationships, word of mouth and sales conversion.
In summary, patient centricity is not easy. The only way any healthcare company will thrive in the future is by being clear on how to create more value, more efficiently for patients. It requires fundamental change to the organisation, the culture and even the business model, which must be inspired by insight and driven through the business with a clear purpose. However, with the speed of change and disruption we are seeing in the world of wellness, we need to start now.
Clear is a global marketing strategy consultancy. Over the last 10 years we’ve worked with some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and healthcare companies, including Novartis, GSK, Pfizer, and Reckitt Benckiser. C LE A R | 03