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Accelerating Patient Engagement: Lessons from Trailblazers in Pharma

How Salesforce customers accelerated patient centricity

SEPT 02, 2021. 7 MIN READ

The future of successful pharmaceutical companies lies in putting patient engagement at the forefront of their businesses. The current environment is accelerating this need as organizations work harder than ever to meet rising expectations for coordinated, convenient, personalized, and accessible care and solutions.

Technology has a critical role to play in creating a culture based on patient centricity. But this kind of focus on the patient requires much more than offering a mobile app or sending a personalized email. It demands that you find the right technology that affords a complete view of the patient, provides connected solutions for omni-channel experiences, and intelligently coordinates data and insights across the organization.

This guide is designed to help pharma companies on the complex journey to patient centricity. Learn how leading organizations are taking a more patient-centric approach with Salesforce — and discover the steps you can take to get there too.

Two patient-centric approaches

Each use case offers practical applications of Salesforce technology featuring Trailblazers. Dive into each story:

USE CASE 1: EVALUATE AND SCALE PATIENT SERVICE PROGRAMS IN-HOUSE

Learn how Otsuka America Pharmaceutical engages patients on their speciality therapy programs.

USE CASE 2: IMPROVE RECRUITMENT AND ENGAGEMENT IN CLINICAL RESEARCH

Discover how Sanguine BioSciences connects patients with researchers to support COVID-19 vaccine research.

As you dive into each section, consider these success metrics from Salesforce customers:

days faster to get patients on therapy for one patient services program with Health Cloud

+12

days reduction in time from enrollment to therapy for one company providing CAR-T therapy with Health Cloud

18 days faster to get patients on therapy for one patient services program with Health Cloud

12+ days reduction in time from enrollment to therapy for one company providing CAR-T therapy with Health Cloud

29% increase in adherence due to personalized messaging from Marketing Cloud

39% faster decision making with Einstein Artificial Intelligence

38% faster integration with MuleSoft

35% increase in patient satisfaction after the launch of Experience Cloud to make it easier to find information

Use case 1: Evaluate and scale commercial patient services in-house

Many pharmaceutical companies are considering if and how to bring patient support programs in-house after years of outsourcing. Two developments are pushing them in this direction:

Specialty products and personalized therapies have grown rapidly over the past decade and require a more integrated approach.
Pharmaceutical companies want to build deeper relationships to facilitate access to products for on-label patients.

To succeed in this goal, pharmaceutical companies need greater visibility into critical patient data so they can demonstrate product delivery value and meaningful improvements to patient outcomes.

Otsuka America Pharmaceutical, Inc. (“Otsuka”), a top global pharmaceutical company, has both personalized and scaled patient services in-house. Otsuka produces specialty medicine in neuroscience and nephrology that often comes with high out-of-pocket costs. To provide patients support for unique specialty therapies, Otsuka uses Salesforce to access a patient data model that helps their patient support team deliver the most personalized, relevant experience.

Leveraging a patient data model

Otsuka’s patient support team uses Health Cloud in the contact center to answer patient’s questions about their therapy program. Health Cloud layers on top of existing systems of record to create a single source of truth for patient data.
When a patient calls in, a patient support team member immediately pulls up critical information to try and provide the most personalized experience. The patient data model includes details on the patient’s insurance plan, health record, and communication preferences.

To continue support of patients through their treatment journey, Otsuka couples Health Cloud and Experience Cloud. From a secure portal, the patient is walked through the consent process with step-by-step directions and can sign documentation digitally. Their consent is automatically updated in Health Cloud, which gives the patient support team the most up-to-date view of the patient. This portal also benefits patients throughout their therapy program by allowing them to access information about their medication and personalized content based on their condition.

Personalizing patient outreach

By integrating data into a single source, Otsuka’s Marketing teams are able to better understand their patients and turn insight into action by delivering the right message at the right time on the patient’s preferred channel. With Marketing Cloud, the teams find appropriate patient segments, craft tailored messaging, view campaign performance metrics, and experiment with their marketing programs to test, learn, and build trusted relationships. With this approach, they can inform patients with content that truly resonates with them. Marketing automation also helps to detect if a patient hasn’t opened a message or taken action to trigger a follow-up.

Staying agile in response to COVID-19

The pandemic has posed new challenges with access to medication. At-risk groups may fear entering a pharmacy or doctor’s office and want to reduce possible exposure to the virus. Other patients may have lost their job or are experiencing financial hardship and can no longer afford their prescriptions.

Otsuka rapidly responded to the health crisis by creating a new support channel for patients in just three months. The patient support team works off real-time, direct insights into patient needs. If a patient needs specific expertise, such as medication assistance, the patient support team can escalate the need to a skilled nurse or patient education liaison.

Health Cloud enables this kind of coordination. Teams efficiently work together with the same data sets and use guided workflows to streamline processes. Internal chat features help them communicate and collaborate in real time.

months to go live with Health Cloud

month implementation of Marketing Cloud

1,4k

interactions with patients and caregivers

87%

of cases closed in just one business day

months to go live with Health Cloud

month implementation of Marketing Cloud

1,400

interactions with patients and caregivers

87%

of cases closed in just one business day

See how to bring awareness to your patient support programs

Rethinking patient support programs may feel like a big project. The key is to start small and extend as you go. Start with Health Cloud, which pulls in data across your systems of record to create a patient data model. MuleSoft AnyPoint Platform works on the back end to integrate data from multiple sources and systems of record to power a comprehensive view of each patient and their specific needs.

Next, create an easy path to enrollment with a patient community with Experience Cloud. Use Tableau CRM for Healthcare, which has built-in artificial intelligence (AI), to understand patient and prescription metrics and take actions to improve time to therapy and patient adherence. Tie it altogether with Marketing Cloud for proactive patient outreach and send automated reminders and personalized messages throughout the health journey.

Salesforce’s Connect the Patient Experience solution enables personalized engagement and support programs on a single platform to reduce operational costs while helping patients manage their disease and navigate their health journey.

Discover the Connect the Patient Experience solution.

LEARN MORE

Use case 2: Improve recruitment and engagement in clinical research

Patient recruitment takes 30% of the clinical trial duration, making it the single longest step in the process. And a study of trials in the United Kingdom found only 31% of trials meet enrollment goals. This is often because people aren’t aware of the trial, they fear participating, or they don’t know enough about trial requirements.

Virtual engagement became a critical component of clinical trials during the pandemic. They aren’t just a stop gap to keep existing trials on track and accelerate COVID-19-related trials, either. Virtual trials enable pharmaceutical companies to streamline enrollment and recruitment and boost the likelihood of patient adherence.

Consider Sanguine BioSciences, a fully integrated biomedical research service solution company that connects patients and researchers throughout the study or trial process. Their therapeutic experience is wide-ranging, but in 2020, they pivoted to support COVID-19 vaccine research. Virtual engagement was the key to recruiting patients quickly. Sanguine uses Salesforce to identify recovered COVID-19 patients and connect them with studies across six different pharmaceutical companies.

Creating a patient registry

To fuel vaccine research studies, Sanguine proactively built a registry of recovered COVID-19 patients. They use Pardot, a marketing automation tool, to send targeted communications to individuals and researchers about the studies. Pardot allows Sanguine to track signups on their website, through email, and on Facebook. Information is automatically saved in Sales Cloud, which acts as a uniform platform for the team to search for patients that may qualify for COVID-19 studies (and other disease-specific research). To date, Sanguine’s patient community is made up of more than 30,000 members.

Shortly after signup, a team member follows up with the patient to ask questions. The patient is assigned a specific study based on their responses, saved in Sales Cloud as an opportunity.

Next, Sanguine connects the patient with a phlebotomist or nurse (as specified) to schedule a home visit to gather blood samples. The patient fills out a digital consent form through HelloSign — no one has to go into an office to sign paperwork. Once the patient gives consent, Sanguine has the greenlight to reach out to the patient’s doctors, request their electronic medical record (EMR), and schedule an in-home visit to collect blood samples that may help researchers better understand the immune response when developing a vaccine.

Giving phlebotomists the information they need

With all information stored in Salesforce, team members can coordinate with mobile phlebotomists in real time. For the in-home visit, phlebotomists use a mobile app to take notes about the patient’s current and previous state and reference critical information shared during the onboarding process. This information is automatically synced back into Salesforce for faster data sharing and seamless collaboration.

30K+

names in the patient database

425+

samples collected from recovered COVID-19 patients

23+

COVID-19 research studies in which patients participated

Learn more about virtual engagement in clinical trials

Sanguine is just one example of how virtual engagement can work with Salesforce. Pharmaceutical companies can use Health Cloud as a single platform to recruit, enroll, and engage patients across therapeutic areas and trial phases. Health Cloud connects patients, sites, and clinical trial teams for better collaboration. MuleSoft integrates the various clinical applications and systems of records for complete visibility into clinical operations.

Marketing Cloud (which includes Pardot) helps pharmaceutical companies recruit and enroll patients quickly across social and digital channels. Patients access a secure user-friendly patient portal through Experience Cloud to enroll and begin remote screening. Partners through the AppExchange offer customizable mobile apps for teams to manage data. And Tableau CRM provides an easy way to view insights, share data, and make smarter decisions around users, systems, and geographies. Portfolio managers are empowered with real-time data from all clinical systems and AI-powered predictions and recommendations to streamline study oversight.

Discover the Accelerate R&D Innovation solution.

LEARN MORE

Design your patient-centric approach

With the right technology partner, pharmaceutical and medtech organizations can accelerate the journey to patient centricity in incremental, meaningful steps that drive immediate impact.

Salesforce solutions, built on the world's #1 CRM platform, empower organizations to go digital fast, accelerate value, and transform business. With a flexible and scalable platform, you can accelerate innovation and surface new insights with core omni-channel, digital, AI, and analytics capabilities in a secure and compliant way.