The Quantified Self: Aligning Digital to User Needs

eyeforpharma interviews Kai Gait, Multi-Channel Marketing Franchise Director at GSK, for his thoughts on the ‘quantified self’ movement and the importance of putting the user’s needs first in an age where patients have more control over their data than ever before.



Kai sees mobile technology as “the most disruptive new technology in terms of how pharma does business. The explosive growth of mobile devices has opened up whole new realms of communication and whole new markets. Africa is one example; buying a PC or laptop is still too costly but tablets and smartphones are allowing a lot of people to get online. Meanwhile established markets are also seeing growth in the numbers of mobile devices used.”

This creates challenges for pharma companies who wish to engage consumers through these new devices – “it takes a lot of re-engineering to start thinking from a different media perspective. For example, if there is a website we have in multiple markets, moving it to an engaging  mobile experience can be challenging – simply because of the technical difficulty of going from a bigger screen to a smaller screen, which could change the way the information is presented and accessed. There are different ways of approaching this problem: the company could build parallel content for mobile devices, or the existing website could be changed into a mobile-friendly format so it renders on all devices – a more elegant, ‘one web’ solution. I believe pharma companies should be putting mobile first, and for that reason we should all be designing all our online communications with mobile in mind from the outset.”

I still see a lot of digital tools and services that haven’t been designed with the end-user and their preferred format in mind

One of the main features of mobile devices is their ability to run applications, or ‘apps.’ Although pharma has been experimenting with the creation of apps for customers, Kai believes there are some typical problems in this area. “You have iOS (Apple), Android (Samsung, HTC etc.), Windows Phone OS, and Blackberry OS.  The different operating systems mean that you cannot just build one version of an application, unless it is a web app. For a standard app you will need to build 4 bespoke versions of the software, or even more considering that Android suffers from fragmentation across different devices. Furthermore, all of these companies’ operating systems are constantly being updated, so we have to look at what effect these changes will have and whether the application will still work on the updated systems. Marketers also get carried away building things for Apple devices, but ultimately, they are a smaller share of the market, so you are fulfilling a smaller need. There is a balancing act between developing a native app or a web app which the marketer needs to consider when looking at their project, with trade-offs to both. Again it’s important to consider how the end-user will interact with it.”

For Kai, everything pharma does digitally should revolve around the needs of the user. “I think m-Health is a misaligned term these days, because the mobile is mostly used to provide information based upon a contextual query. This information should be available on all formats, not just mobile, in order to suit the different individual needs out there. I still see a lot of digital tools and services that haven’t been designed with the end-user and their preferred format in mind.” Kai gives an example in order to demonstrate how a user might require information to be presented in different formats depending on their situation: “consider the Nike FuelBand, a wearable fitness device. The most basic stats are available from the device itself, but if I have been running and I want to review metrics from my run, then share these with my friends or colleagues, I can upload them onto my smartphone and post them on social media sites. Yet I am not limited to looking at those metrics on a smartphone – I can also get home and log on to the FuelBand website on my desktop to get another level of analysis on my stats. It’s ultimately the same data, just visually giving more depth on differing devices based upon user preference”

We need to produce technology that will help people regain control over their lives, and in this respect pharma can learn a lot from the [Quantified Self] movement

The growing market for fitness trackers such as the FuelBand is testament to the rising popularity of the ‘quantified self’ (QS) movement, a trend that involves recording personal data and using it to track health and fitness. Kai sees this trend as having an effect on how pharma does business: “I think the QS movement is a sign that more and more people are taking an active role in their health, which means that when they are diagnosed with a condition they will want to know how to take control of it and reduce the effect it has on their lifestyle. We need to produce technology that will help people regain control over their lives, and in this respect pharma can learn a lot from the QS movement. Pharma is not going to start building Nike FuelBands, but there may be a need for smart devices in some areas, for instance those which enable patients to keep better track of their medicines.”

Kai thinks pharma companies should exercise caution when providing tools and services that help patients track their health. “If you are going to start developing technology such as remote monitoring devices, you have to be prepared to invest in that for multiple years, instead of doing it for one year and leaving it out of the budget the year after. Many people have to manage their condition for their whole lives – so if you are going to give them, for example, a heart monitoring bracelet that can track their data and contact emergency services for them, you have to be in it for the long term. If the patient grows to rely on the service you provide, and uses it for three years, what are they going to do in year 4 when the support for this program fizzles out? If pharma wants to invest in projects such as this, they need to have a plan which lays out how to support this device if it becomes successful, and how to deal with the fallout if it is unsuccessful.”

A more sensible route for companies to go down is through partnerships with those for whom tech is a core business. “If you look at the smart watch market for instance, we are expecting Apple, Samsung, Sony, Google, and others to get into this field. If pharma wanted to develop a smart device to monitor heart rate or blood pressure, there is no reason we couldn’t partner with any one of those companies. Smart technologies are not necessarily pharma’s core business – why not let the experts be the first into this space and then partner with them to realise pharma’s technological future?”

However, this does not mean that pharma should avoid all experimentation with digital – simply that they should stick to areas closer to their core business. “What pharma companies are very good at is developing medicines and diagnostics. There have recently been fantastic advances in diagnostic technology from pharma companies, allowing for more personalized healthcare. In the next few years, I think we will see personalized healthcare taking place more and more through mobile devices. As health monitoring technology becomes more advanced and cheaper, remote diagnosing will become more mainstream. Patients who quantify their health data will be able to share this information with healthcare professionals online. Pharma may be able to provide tools and services in this space, as long as it is designed and built with the end users being in the forefront of the service design.”


Kai will be explaining the Quantified Self and the patient self-management revolution at this year's Multichannel Marketing EU Summit. For more information on his presentation or to see what other new technologies will be demonstrated visit the official website.