Nareda Mills
Global President, Patient Solutions
Inizio Engage, an Inizio Company
The Patient Education Champion
As a nurse in pediatric oncology, Nareda Mills was floated to an intensive care unit to care for a teenage boy with T-cell lymphoma. She became aware the boy’s parents had no idea what was happening so began educating them on the nature of the disease, its treatment, and what they should expect over the next few years. Although unable to get an educator job funded at the hospital, Nareda continued undaunted educating the families of newly diagnosed patients as she cared for them. Ever since, no matter where her career has taken her, Nareda has remained an advocate for patients and their families or care partners.
Now the Global President, Patient Solutions at Inizio Engage, Nareda leads a team of 850 clinical educators worldwide working across virtually all therapeutic areas. She works to create solutions alongside the patients, families, and care partners the programs will serve, so there is impactful support along the treatment journey.
For example, when performing routine call calibration functions, Nareda and her team recognized a patient disconnect regarding medication access. From this, a new service to assist patients in navigating their access and adherence to medication was conceived. Once this service is in place, Patient Navigators will work to help newly diagnosed enrolled patients understand the challenges in obtaining specialty and rare and orphan disease medications, in terms of pre-initiation testing requirements, coverage determination, and fulfillment along with ongoing engagement. These navigators will become the primary point of contact for the patient and their care partner and help set expectations on the impact of the disease and its prescribed treatment.
But Nareda feels a lot more can be done to stay closer to patients and understand their needs. Although she believes technology platforms can help, the reliance upon social media and its potential for delivering inaccurate or biased information is a real concern—one to which Nareda hopes to find an answer. She believes patient mentor programs can help, but there are hurdles in developing such platforms within the industry. However, Nareda is prepared to tackle the challenge and continue to listen to patients to design support programs that fit their needs.
