Analysis
Pharma and the connected patient
How digital technology is enabling patient centricity
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- Challenges, strategies and future enablers for adopting digital technology
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With over 260,000 health apps worldwide and 70% of patient groups using at least one app to manage their condition, it’s clear that a digital ecosystem has developed within healthcare. New research released by the Deloitte Centre for Health Solutions explores how digital technology can help pharma embrace patient centricity to remain relevant, profitable, and to deliver better health outcomes.
Patient centricity
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What is patient centricity?
Simply put, patient centricity refers to the process of developing positive healthcare outcomes through direct engagement with patients. Genuine patient centricity means understanding the patientââ¬â¢s experience of his or her condition, and what the individual patient values and needs.
There are five key dimensions of patient centricity:
- inclusiveness
- working in partnership
- working in a way that shows respect, compassion and openness
- empowering patients to take control of their own health
- sharing goals that are patient and family-centred.
Why is patient centricity important?
Pharma is at an inflection point where increasing risks mean many companies are now looking to demonstrate value for money through a combination of new pricing models, improved benefit tracking and the introduction of wraparound services that ââ¬Ëgo beyond the pill.ââ¬â¢ There is a growing realisation that a new business model is needed if the industry is not only to thrive, but to survive.
Patient centricity is important because the insights gained by listening to the voice of the patient can be applied at every stage of a pharma companyââ¬â¢s efforts, from drug discovery to winning regulatory approval, to post-market disease management. By engaging directly with patients and partnering with them across the entire pharma value chain, pharma companies can re-invent their business and operating model in order to re-vitalise the industry so that they can remain relevant, profitable and sustainable in the future.
How is digital technology enabling patient
centricity?
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- Mobile apps
Mobile health (mHealth) apps allow patients to better manage their care whilst also allowing for easier communication and evaluation of their health conditions by their communities, carers and medical teams. Pharma companies have begun to capitalise on the rise of health apps to engage more with patients. Pharmaââ¬â¢s contribution to the ââ¬Ëmhealthââ¬â¢ app market include:
- almost 70% of patient groups surveyed indicated that the patients whom they are familiar with use at least one health app to manage their condition
- in 2016 there were 260,000 mHealth apps worldwide, which collectively generated 3.2 billion downloads. Apps produced by the top 12 pharma companies in 2016 contributed 5.6 million downloads
- the number of apps produced by the top 12 pharma has grown at a rate of 48% (2012-2016.) However, on a year-on-year basis growth in the number of downloads of these apps are generating has begun to slow.
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- Web portals
Patient portals are secure online websites that give patients convenient 24-hour access to personal health information via an internet connection, helping to drive patient engagement and activation. These pharma-created portals could help patients, providers and payers understand the benefits of a particular therapy, raise the profile of the sponsoring pharma company and create opportunities to reform the pharma business model.
Research shows that patients are increasingly comfortable using patient portals as a way of accessing their medical records and to communicate with their clinicians.
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- Wearables
Wearables are smart electronic devices worn on or implanted in the body that incorporate practical functions and features. They often come in the form of smartwatches and other wrist-worn vital sign trackers, smart clothing, sensing tattoos, eyewear and medical patches. They have the potential to transform certain aspects of pharma's business practices as follows:
- transforming recruitment and retention in, and management of, clinical trials
- improving productivity across the pharma value chain
- monitoring adherence to treatments in real time to help predict or alert patients and healthcare professionals to changes in the patientsââ¬â¢ condition to help avoid adverse outcomes.
Wearables allow pharma to become closer to the patient by providing real time feedback on their health condition. Capturing real time objective data will lead to ineffective trials being cancelled earlier and the ability to monitor and adjust treatments more quickly.
Challenges, strategies and future enablers for adopting digital technology
Based on extensive literature reviews, new primary research on the production and utilisation of health apps by 12 major pharma companies and a survey of 190 patient groups, as well as our experience working across the healthcare and life sciences sector, our report examines the barriers that pose a threat to pharma’s transformation as well as the strategies being used to achieve patient centricity.
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