Putting patients at the heart of cell and gene therapy

Please note, this article contains references to Ashfield Engage which has now become Inizio Engage

Cell and gene therapies (C&GTs) present opportunities to not only treat disease, but to restore function and improve disease management.

Nareda Mills, our Global Head of Patient Solutions, has been featured by MedAdNews talking about this critical topic. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

Opportunities are continuing to expand

Although the opportunities with C&GTs are continuing to expand, there is a widening gap between the potential of treatment advances and the patient experience. The industry is beginning to acknowledge the problems faced in one of healthcare’s most complex areas for patient experience.

Read the full article here

Valuing the patient experience

The industry needs to think differently about strategies to communicate effectively with C&GT patients. Companies need to address pricing, reimbursement and support systems with the patient experience in mind. To advance effectively towards a patient-centric C&GT journey, information delivery and experience analysis need to be conducted with a focus on a deeper level of empathetic and personalized interactions. Interactive patient journey maps are needed to record and analyze the experiences patients have through early onboarding, cell collection processes, treatment and beyond.

For C&GT to reach its market potential and treat every patient effectively, communication needs to be prioritized. Patients need to understand the treatment, the support and options from which they can choose and how they can tailor their own healthcare journey. This can only be achieved through effective dialogue between patients, HCPs and the pharmaceutical industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic paired with this era of digitalization has accelerated the creation and importance of education and communication platforms for all HCPs and patients. As the healthcare industry has had to ensure that healthcare information is communicated rapidly and efficiently, novel solutions and streamlined processes are emerging. For C&GT patients this translates to more understandable and engaging content, on-demand healthcare access and support, as well as virtual appointments. Although these advances are aiding in positively impacting the patient experience, better patient engagement is still needed. Meeting with patients and families in the early stages enables the creation of patient support solutions that are as personalized as their therapy.

Read the full article here