Patient Engagement and Patient Access are critical success factors for pharmaceutical and medtech companies.

The healthcare system of the future sees the patient at the center of events, listens and communicates withhim rather than talking about him. It is a health system in which participatory decision-making and an open dialogue between stakeholders is promoted and lived. All participants communicate with each other in a trusting and transparent manner in mutual respect and in awareness of the sometimes conflicting interests.

The way to having such a healthcare system is patient orientation. It is demanded not only by the patients themselves, but increasingly also by regulatory authorities and reimbursement institutions and is thus developing into a market requirement that can no longer be ignored by pharmaceutical and medtech companies. Patient orientation is translated into practice by way of engaging patients and providing them access to the health-care system.

Patient Engagement and Patient Access as opportunities for both companies and patients

• Innovation:learning from and involving patients during research & development enables companies to access the rich experience of patients to create better products or services.
• Clinical trials:when designing clinical trials, early patient-expert involvement helps making the protocols more meaningful for regulators, payers and acceptable for patients. Involving patients is also a powerful way of ensuring speedy recruitment and above-average retention in the trial. Communicating the results timely after the CTR is available, is not only a courtesy to patients but is demanded increasingly by the patient communities.
• Market access: pricing & reimbursement decisions are increasingly governed by the patient-relevance of the data provided. Demonstrating true patient-value in terms of mortality, morbidity and quality of life is a pre-requisite for favorable market access. However, patient access is more than that. It mandates knowledge of patients about the new therapeutic opportunities and the ability to access them with low barriers if they are in need of the new technology. This can only be achieved by empowering patients and treating them as true partners.
• Patient empowerment: Helping to empower patients to make informed decisions about their health and therapeutic options is key to make medical progress truly available to patients. However, as true for all patient-related activities, it requires a strong legal and behavioral compliant framework governed by the principles of transparency, independence and respect for the dignity of patients.

Thanks to their broad network Healthcare Shapers understand both the technical and medical aspects as well as the economic and operational challenges related to patient orientation. Together we help companies to master the challenge of integrating the patient view along the value chain of pharmaceutical and technical product innovation and market access. We contribute to putting patient relevance high up on the agenda and creating added value for both patients and companies.