Health Care
Today’s health care industry is on the precipice of tremendous change. The typical business model has come under pressure as ever-expanding costs are resulting in decreasing profits for established players. At the same time, the entrance of new players from other industries is radically redefining the relationship users have with their health care providers. Despite these challenges, the industry continues to focus on incremental innovation--rarely straying far from the status quo--rather than seeking out bolder innovations that create a meaningful difference in users' lives.
ReD partners with the health care companies that dare to call current industry trends into question. If everyone is moving towards value-based models, how can companies define themselves by delivering value beyond the product? Why do so many patients not take their drugs or use their medical devices? Are the products themselves presenting the challenge or does the system providing the products fail?
Together with our clients, we explore some of the most widely held beliefs of the industry in an effort to better understand the needs of patients and professionals. We develop insights about the everyday lives of the people using the products and translate those insights into solutions.
Our work focuses on three main areas:
Innovation
Patient Services
Commercial Effectiveness
By putting the patient and their needs first, we help to identify the opportunities that actually make a difference in people’s lives as well as for the bottom line of our clients.
Innovation
We anchor innovation projects in a deep understanding of the needs of patients and professionals. This ensures that new products will deliver benefits that create truly superior value – beyond the legal requirements for approval. To best assist our clients in moving from strategic decision to development, we provide them with the materials most appropriate for their process: this includes everything from guidance around key mergers and acquisitions to assistance with in-house innovation – be it innovation intents, product briefs, prioritization of pipeline, or design criteria delivered as story boards or target product profiles outlining the details of the product (whom it’s for, when and how it’s used, etc.). These are often co-developed with the client team through workshops, and disseminated through the organization via internal workshops, print and online materials.
Many of our clients have seen their sales expectations exceeded by 2-3 times after new product launches. Others have redefined how healthcare professionals and users choose treatment and products, resulting in the redefinition of entire categories and ultimately helping bigger market share for many our clients.
Patient Services
Millions of people experience the consequences of poorly controlled chronic disease(s). Today every second adult has at least one chronic illness and estimates suggest that between 25 to 75 percent of them are not following the treatment prescribed to them by their health care provider. This has tremendous societal consequences; some estimates suggest nearly $300 billion lost in avoidable hospitalizations, nursing home admissions and premature deaths.
The current model for patient services is far too often predicated on the notion that the patient is at fault for failing to comply with prescriptions given by the health care professional. Physician-patient interaction and new technology solutions try to educate and motivate patients but, more often than not, they fail to address the real reasons behind their lack of compliance with treatment regiments. Tackling non-adherence is, first and foremost, about truly understanding the dynamic and shifting needs of the patient as well as the needs of other key stakeholders, both practitioners and caregivers. This people-centric approach enables our clients to develop unique offerings, and in so doing improves treatments, quality-of-life for patients, and cost-effectiveness of health care systems.
“Tackling non-adherence is, first and foremost, about truly understanding the dynamic and shifting needs of the patient as well as the needs of other key stakeholders, both practitioners and caregivers.”
ReD provides our clients with patient support communication plans and strategies for healthcare professionals, as well as plans for care programs (including defining and outlines for patient engagement). These approaches have been incredibly successful, making it possible for our clients to improve adherence rates from 20 to 80 percent. One major med-tech company has shifted its allocation of budget towards patient-care programs and away from traditional sales having seen a much higher rate of return and success with new patient-care programs. This shift in strategy makes it possible for them to comply with their mission statement on customer centricity while simultaneously becoming a market leader.
Commercial Effectiveness
In U.S. and European markets, where the industry's focus is on getting a drug to the market expediently, physicians have fewer opportunities to speak with the pharmaceutical sales forces about the needs they see. In a climate where payers are becoming even more important, what is the pharmaceutical and med-tech companies’ future maneuvering space? How is the relationship between sales reps and professionals changing and how does that, in turn, affect professionals and users?
ReD has extensively explored the challenges arising from this grey zone. Together with our clients we transform insights and recommendations into redefined sales force strategies. Depending on the challenge, we provide strategic guidance ranging from the creation of extended value propositions, sales materials and communication guidelines, as well as sales plans and tools for prescribers in their interactions with health care professionals. These recommendations have resulted in notable sales force effectiveness. One client experienced a 15 percent increase in key indicators like physicians' trust, after implementing a new sales toolkit based on the understanding they garnered of the everyday reality of the physicians and patients. As their main competitors attempted to salvage their underperforming sales force operations, our partners recorded notable market share gains.
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