Members Find Support on Available Treatments for Osteoporosis

Members Find Support on Available Treatments for Osteoporosis By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD MSPH While the CDC is urging the public and the medical community to delay “all elective and ambulatory provider visits,” Inspire’s partner, the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF), is stressing the need for osteoporosis patients to adhere to their medication schedule, including medications that require provider administration. “It is extremely important that patients taking… (anti-osteoporosis) medications administered by a healthcare provider stay on time for scheduled injections.”1 They then list several common medications that fall into this category. This complicates an already challenging condition for the [...]

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Apr 2020By |0 Comments

How is COVID-19 Impacting Patients and the Life Science Industry?

How is COVID-19 Impacting Patients and the Life Science Industry? By Jeff Terkowitz As a virtual business, Inspire has a head start in dealing with social distancing and COVID-19. Many of our employees work virtually. Our patient and caregiver members have always communicated virtually and during this time are actively engaged in discussing the impact the Coronavirus and COVID-19 are having on their behaviors, concerns and needs. Proactive as ever, Inspire created a new resource for Coronavirus including a map of where people are discussing their experiences, videos of Inspire members participating in our #keepusallsafe public awareness [...]

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Apr 2020By |0 Comments

Continuing Critical Patient-Centric Research Virtually during COVID19

Continuing Critical Patient-Centric Research Virtually during COVID19 By Richard Tsai The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing all kinds of businesses and research institutions to find ways of working that provide results similar to what we’re used to gaining from human social interaction. For example, being mindful of the time healthcare professionals need to dedicate to the pandemic has resulted in tremendous delays in HCP-based market research programs. Many clinical trial sites have temporarily suspended work that not only impacts existing enrolled patients but also greatly reduces recruitment. How can we continue critical research programs amidst these challenges? As [...]

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Mar 2020By |0 Comments

Caregivers and Treatment Decisions

Caregivers and Treatment Decisions By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Besides patients and doctors, who else influences treatment adherence at the consumer level? Marketing might look to one group that has multiple points of influence: Caregivers. Several studies confirm that caregivers are an important factor in a patient’s decisions, including decisions on medication. One study called "The Role of the Family in Treatment Decision Making by Patients With Cancer,” said, “Family opinions have a significant impact on patients’ treatment decisions and psychological well-being....Family care of patients typically involves monitoring patients’ medications.” Another study entitled, “Patient Centered Care: A [...]

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Mar 2020By |0 Comments

Suffering Through the Opioid Crisis: The Language of Chronic Pain

Suffering Through the Opioid Crisis: The Language of Chronic Pain By Claire Harter, MA Market researchers in the pharmaceutical industry need to know their audience - their unmet needs, language, and experiences. Recent research in chronic pain at Inspire reveals the lexicon of chronic pain patients and their experiences with treatment. Pain Management History Documented widespread under-treatment of pain was a major medical health problem prior to the year 2000. The World Health Organization’s Cancer Pain Monograph detailed poor pain management of cancer and post-operative patients in 1986. Multiple publications throughout the 1990s on inadequate assessment [...]

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Feb 2020By |1 Comment

Inspire’s MS Community Overcomes Patient Isolation with Peer-to-Peer Support and Experience

Inspire’s MS Community Overcomes Patient Isolation with Peer-to-Peer Support and Experience By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Over 15,000 members of Inspire have interest in, searched for, or have posted about multiple sclerosis (MS). Members have written over 4000 posts and more than 2000 searches have been conducted on MS. Pharmaceutical marketers wonder if patients discuss medications with each other online. The answer is a definitive yes. Patients also discuss what they learned online about treatments with their health care provider. It is not unusual for members to reach out after just being diagnosed. “I was just [...]

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Jan 2020By |0 Comments

What Touchpoints Influence Drug Compliance for Chronic Illnesses?

What Touchpoints Influence Drug Compliance for Chronic Illnesses? By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Recent marketing research from Google shows that it takes 50-500 touchpoints to influence a purchase decision. While the study focused on common non-medical purchases (headphones, airline flights, beauty products, and candy), the authors point out an important shift in the concept of marketing touchpoints: Today, people are no longer following a linear path from awareness to consideration to purchase. They are narrowing and broadening their consideration set in unique and unpredictable moments. In fact, the authors of a study titled “Chronic Illness Medication [...]

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Jan 2020By |0 Comments

Patient Centricity: Joining Qualitative with Quantitative

Patient Centricity: Joining the Qualitative with the Quantitative By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Reams of market research and data can provide insight, but so can one patient in the room, telling you what really matters to them.1~Paul Tunnah, PharmaPhorum founder The FDA’s drug approval process requires developers to submit quantitative data demonstrating that the treatment is safe and effective after testing in a representative target population. But if you’re accustomed to using quantitative studies to attain approval, you might be feeling jaded about patient centricity guidances. As Tunna’s article says, “...everyone seems keener to shout about [...]

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Dec 2019By |0 Comments

Getting the Real Story from Patients

Getting the Real Story from Patients By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD, MSPH Humans evolved in a storytelling milieu where stories taught and explained the world around us. Our brains carry this legacy, research shows that the brain can store more information and retrieve it more easily when it is in story form. Narrative is easier to understand, is more engaging, and is an effective tool to communicate science to lay individuals.1,2 Personal narratives make science relatable. But mistakes made in the process of capturing a patient narrative can be cumulative. When writing native advertising (sponsored content), copy [...]

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Nov 2019By |0 Comments

Do You Really Know How Patients Talk About Their Condition?

Do You Really Know How Patients Talk About Their Condition? By Kathleen Hoffman, PhD MSPH There are classic examples of advertising messages that ended up offending the target customer, but the Utah Department of Transportation provided the most recent. The Utah DOT’s lighthearted attempt to adopt a specific culture’s way of speaking was predictably ridiculed when “Hey Teens, Buckling Up is Totes Yeet Yo” (meaning “the use of seatbelts is excellent”) appeared on the state’s electronic highway signs.1 honestly pic.twitter.com/axXJwjbJrH — Nico Di Angelo Fan Blog (@Laney_Brynn) October 23, 2019 The story is funny, but illustrates [...]

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Oct 2019By |0 Comments