Much like today’s healthcare industry professionals should assess strategies for building and maintaining meaningful partnerships to ensure business success and comprehensive patient care, embracing patients as “partners” in care is an important, albeit challenging, proposition.

The “informed” patient has long been the ideal goal in healthcare, but it’s what defines the patient as an “informed participant” — through what they know and how they come to know it — that has to be nurtured if their participation is going to be significant.

Pharmaceutical professionals say the influence that they can have on patient care through information sharing is changing, especially when considering the effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on healthcare delivery. It’s up to industry members, however, to foster a proactive approach to reaching those patients whom they ultimately serve, especially when considering that expectations about healthcare services have shifted among patients and clinicians alike.

The presence of technology has most notably impacted this shift; digital tools for example, had become increasingly integrated into care planning prior to COVID-19, but have since become a necessity, if not a demand. Balancing the benefits of technology without sacrificing real human connectedness will be key to provider-patient “partnership” building and is something that those in the pharmaceutical industry can also have a stake in.

“In It Together”: The Integrated Perspective

The “business” of healthcare requires patients to participate as decision-makers, whether they’re actively aware of it or not — from choosing their insurance coverage options to the increasing reliance on self-care that’s built into so many regimens.

That said, today’s patients and communities need a commitment from healthcare professionals that mimics traditional customer service, primarily due to the impact of COVID-19. A sense of trust that the system will place priority on specific individualized needs at any given time is more crucial now than possibly at any other point in time. However, equitable access to medicine, products, and overall services remains a primary problem.

As defined by the Institute of Medicine, equitable care, or the providing of care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status, is one of six aims for the healthcare system currently driving quality measure development initiatives. To achieve equitable care, services must be integrated throughout the continuum.

A potentially overlooked component of integrating care comprehensively is seeing patients through an integrated view — meaning the visualization of patients through data collection via mobile health tools such as wearables, apps, and monitoring devices. In order to accomplish this aspect to the point that care delivery and outcomes are noticeably improved, there’s going to be an increasing reliance on the expertise of these resources and trusting the data on the part of the provider.

However, there is a caveat to consider.

Technology, as convenient as it appears to be, inherently makes us all busier, sometimes to a fault. The more that we embrace technology, the more it can consume us and have negative consequences on our health.

Certain conditions, such as anxiety and sleep deprivation, are worsened by increased use of technology. However, the ongoing and increasing use of technology in healthcare makes distancing from these devices that much more unlikely for many patients. Providers are not immune to this reality either.

A new study shows that technology and the integration of patient-generated health data can contribute to clinician burnout. Among the study’s conclusions, “techno-stress,” time pressure, and workflow-related inefficiencies can be exacerbated by information overload. Providers must be mindful of their own health as they continue to be dedicated to changing dynamics for their patients’ sake, and they need the help of those throughout industry to be sympathetic and mindful of the expectations placed on them as well.

The Patient as the “Center of Everything”

Technology’s current role in healthcare and life overall also makes it more likely for the patient-provider relationship to become distanced and impersonal. This is true even when considering the benefits of healthcare integration. The comfort that is intended to exist with a one-on-one patient-provider relationship is altered when a patient must undergo multiple one-on-one interactions with many providers across the continuum.

As such, the concept of patient centricity is being promoted by more industry members as a valuable trend today. Once defined as the placement of the patient at the center of the conversation to support their wants, needs, and preferences, the patient-centric model now tasks those within the healthcare industry to develop solutions that are rooted in data resulting from direct feedback from patients.

More recently, a patient-centric interdependence model has been said to show signs of further revolutionizing the industry while reducing healthcare costs and supporting quality.

Strategically Approaching the “Informed Patient”

Yes, there has been a longstanding push in healthcare to educate patients more in-depth. With the utilization of mobile technology in particular, it seems that everyone wants their patients to have information, literally, at their fingertips. When considering this collective initiative and the relatively easy access that the internet and mass media offer, information gathering is not a significant chore for many. Gathering the appropriate information efficiently is another story altogether though.

The key here, especially for those in the pharmaceutical industry who will not frequently be patient-facing, will be to influence how open, two-way dialogue happens in the office setting in addition to, but not secondary to, information gathered elsewhere.

According to Aaron George, DO, a physician based in Chambersburg, PA, healthcare systems have done a poor job of communicating expectations and rationale for new pathways to care given today’s technology landscape.

As the pace at which technology evolves and is made available to us is not expected to slow, committing to a shared decision-making model for patients who are informed enough to successfully contribute to decisions will be the necessary mentality if patients will produce a profound voice. This is especially important as healthcare products and services become increasingly more sophisticated while the role of self-care remains significant in care planning.

Throughout the pandemic, patients have shown an increased desire to be well informed about their health. They have begun taking an active role in seeking care despite not always being able to access their providers directly, most notably through the increased use of telemedicine. This level of participation should further encourage those in the pharmaceutical space to be more hands-on in determining the scope of information, data, and tools made available to the public for purposes of empowering patients to advocate for themselves as informed partners in the healthcare setting.

Patients who are more likely to advocate for themselves are also more likely to be adherent and, thus, will likely see better outcomes.

Technology Access and Quality of Life

Despite its potential to inadvertently complicate care, technology will remain a core component of how most healthcare models proceed. Yet, for some patients, the lack of access to technology will be much more problematic and a direct cause of health struggles than will be the potential for technology overload.

This concern has reached a high enough level that it’s a primary focus of the global Sustainable Development Goals established by the United Nations.

A collection of nearly 20 interlinked goals designed to be a “blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all” that are intended to be achieved by 2030, the SDGs represent a commitment to future patients based on the evolving changes that today’s patients are experiencing today as healthcare attempts to become more integrated despite varying social determinants of health that may persist.

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