Treat patients experiences

An excellent article written [1] by Dr Bernie Siegel today; "I recently received two emails: one from a woman who had a recurrence of her cancer and has decided to not undergo chemotherapy again. Her doctor said, "Then you might as well go home and commit suicide." [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bernie-siegel-md/health-care-advice-the-po_b_621161.html

By Richard Meyer on Jul 6, 2010

An excellent article written by Dr Bernie Siegel today; "I recently received two emails: one from a woman who had a recurrence of her cancer and has decided to not undergo chemotherapy again. Her doctor said, "Then you might as well go home and commit suicide."

The other email came from a woman who asked her doctor if they could become a team as she had just finished reading my book. He told her no and that he was the doctor and in charge of her care. She packed her belongings and walked out of the hospital and has found a caring oncologist to work with. She is a survivor and not a submissive sufferer -- or, from the doctor's perspective, a so-called good patient. To us an empowered patient who got mad as hell and didn't want to take it anymore."We need to listen to our patient's words and treat their experience. Helen Keller said it very well when she said, "Deafness is darker by far than blindness." We also need to understand that patients do not live a disease they live an experience and we need to ask how a patient would describe their experience and then treat them accordingly. The words they use, like draining, failure, denial, pressure, gift and wake-up call are always about what is happening in their life. So we can help them to heal their lives and improve the chances of curing their disease."

Listening to patients. If physicians get it then how come drug company marketers can't get it ? As we debate the use of social media and marketing here and on other websites we tend to forget that we need to making mass assumptions for everyone. Not only is each disease state different but the way each patient approaches each disease state is different as well. We can no longer lump patients into 3-4 segments and then develop targeted messages at each segment. Today it is segmentation bases on beliefs and attitudes which in turn leads to the need for a more in depth relationship, a relationship that for the most part the pharma industry has largely ignored. 

Consumer marketers are quickly learning the power of one and what I call "real marketing". Real marketing is genuine and talks to people as people not as segments. In order to leverage this pharma marketers should; 

  • Be looking at customized patient brochures based on a survey when patients request information.

 

  • Using multiple home pages on their web sites tied into keywords via search.

 

  • Providing physicians with content that can be customizes on their practice websites.

 

  • In depth development of CRM to drive patient behavior.

Listening is the first step in ANY conversation but you can't listen when all you want to do is sell. The transformation has better happen soon for DTC marketers or else they risk more budget cuts while they ask market research people to show only the good data (the one with ROI that makes it look like TV works).