As healthcare champions, we embrace the power of patient education. It can enhance health literacy, promote self-efficacy, encourage adherence, and optimize health outcomes.
Education is empowering and transformative—when patients read it. If patients read it. This can be disheartening for those of us dedicated to writing and designing impactful and engaging patient education. We keep the patient at top of mind throughout our creative process and complete meticulous and thorough medical, legal, and regulatory reviews to ensure the education is valuable and unbiased. We make access to our resources convenient, placing printed education at the point of care and digital education within a mouse click. What else can we do? What is the barrier?
Don’t Take This Personally, But…It’s Us
We are pharma, or extensions of it. Over time, patients have developed a distrust of pharma and what we offer. The most pertinent, well-intentioned education can be dismissed because of its source and perceived “agenda.”
A recent survey by NORC at the University of Chicago1 found that, at 34%, pharmaceutical companies are one of the least trusted sources by patients, only higher than the lowest ranked source, health insurance companies (Figure 1).
We all acknowledge that pharma needs to gain trust with patients and the general public. It is imperative. Among many things, this trust will require acts of altruism, a focus on patient centricity, and the most challenging for us, time.
Patients don’t have the luxury of time—many need education now. We have the means and desire to provide it for them, so how can we ensure they receive it?
Embrace the Messenger
If pharma isn’t the right messenger for these vital resources, who can it be?
Well, over 80% of patients do trust their clinicians (84% of patients reported trusting their doctors and 85% their nurses). But do providers utilize patient education?
At first glance, it seems like the answer is no. A recent SERMO survey revealed that less than half of HCPs used educational materials to support patient care.2 However, when digging deeper, this survey also revealed why these materials aren’t being leveraged to enhance patient care.
Most providers aren’t using patient education because it isn’t available or easily accessible or because it isn’t valuable or pertinent (Figure 2).
A potential solution: Give providers the opportunity to create educational resources for their patients. Although time is always an issue, 94% of providers surveyed want to personalize patient educational materials to better match the needs of their patients.
As pharma partners, how can we help make this happen? How can we help HCPs create and use patient education?
Making it Possible
The answer might lie in an approach that has become popular for HCP resources—modular information.
Modular, selectable information is employed currently by pharmaceutical companies to allow marketing teams to create resources with approved, standardized information. This approach not only eases the internal review process, but it also gives brands the flexibility to customize pieces with key messaging and education that will resonate with, and address the knowledge gaps of, providers.
Using a modular approach to patient education allows providers to efficiently create education for the patients of their practice and gives patients education customized by their most trusted source of information.
We have a unique opportunity to educate patients by developing modular programs that allow providers to customize and personalize educational resources for their patients. Delivering these resources in print or digital form allows providers to leverage these tools with patients during in-person or telehealth visits. Although this approach ensures that the education is created and delivered by the right “messenger,” we also need to carefully create the modules that are included for provider selection.
An Issue of If or Can?
Aside from if patients will choose to read the education created for them, we also need to consider whether they are able to read it, to understand it, to relate to it, and to act on it (Figure 3). Modular content is a novel way to allow for this level of resource customization but is only as useful as the information within it. When creating selectable education for the modules, consider its:
- Health literacy (Can patients read and understand it?)
- Cultural competency (Is it sensitive to patients’ beliefs and values?)
- Self-efficacy (Can patients act on it?)
Offering modules that use plain language to relay an assortment of culturally appropriate, effective messages and education will allow providers to create resources with content and imagery that is relevant and meaningful to the patients of their practice. These programs can even offer specific modules based on provider location, suggesting local statistics, patient resources, and support.
The Right Stuff
It will take time for us to gain the trust of patients who need support and education now. By creating these modular programs, we will give providers educational resources that they personally create, believe in, and will use with their patients. In turn, we will empower patients with the ability to understand important medical concepts, to have an active voice during treatment discussions, and to work side-by-side with their healthcare team to achieve the best possible health outcomes.
The right messenger, the right education, and the right thing to do.
References:
1. “Surveys of Trust in the U.S. Health Care System.” NORC at the University of Chicago. https://www.norc.org/PDFs/ABIM%20Foundation/20210520_NORC_ABIM_Foundation_Trust%20in%20Healthcare_Part%201.pdf.
2. “What Physicians Really Want, from Clinical Trials to Personalization.” Sermo. https://www.sermo.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/COVID-HCP-Sentiment-Part-7.pdf.