Dear Pharma: How About Measuring Patient Centricity?

Dear Pharma: How About Measuring Patient Centricity?

So we here are again, my friends. 

Staring down the barrel of an optic we're all just so keen on continuing to ineffectually preen. Everyone and their mother continues to lay claim to drinking the near dogmatic and “moth-to-a-flame” Kool-Aid known as "patient-centricity."

In my previous rants, I brought to light how, currently, there is nothing presently centric about patient centricity. It’s a buzzword pure and simple with no breadth, depth or heft to the phrase whatsoever. I would contend that, in the 10+ years since this phrase first appeared in the stream of conference titles, LinkedIn braggadocio, and marketing slogans, we here on the “patient side” have seen little, if any, measurable results. Have you?

The old adage "if you can't measure it, you can't achieve it" defines this modern-day conundrum. So dear friends, who will be first amongst you to put a metric on Patient Centricity? Lest we forget that there is no one, coalesced and agreed-upon definition that I know of. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Our research, in fact, shows the polar opposite. The verisimilitude of “patient-centricity” has actually made patients feel like less of a priority than ever, especially given today's cost and technology-driven consumer healthcare market.

And yet, the problem is not that people aren't trying. There is no one specific person or company I am throwing under the bus. 

Seriously this time.

In fact, pretty much all Pharma companies and employees charged with creating patient-centric alliances with cancer patient advocacy groups like ours are working diligently—nee feverishly—at this goal.

The hidden reality is that none of these organizations that I am aware of have created metrics to quantify what success looks like. Or what a goal is. Or uniformly agreeing on what it all even means. In this data-driven industry, if patient-centricity is not established with quantifiable metrics, it will always be a distant priority to other performance measures.

That is why Stupid Cancer continues to pioneer, innovate, and disrupt conventional wisdom by its actions. And this year is no different as 2018 marks our 11th year of operations and the hits just keep on coming.

So…………… I am passionately advocating that companies like yours partner with Stupid Cancer—and our mobile partner GRYT Health, which I am a co-founder of—to create these knowingly quantifiable metrics and be successful together.

Beyond our critically important, award-winning programs, services, live events, and digital content influence, Stupid Cancer’s value exchange extends into core B2B competencies catered for Industry From hyper-targeted patient engagement, mobile health, and survivorship research to clinical trials, studies, digital content, video channels, influence marketing, and social reach, let’s make young adult cancer suck less together.