Patients suffering from rare diseases and their caregivers often struggle to manage the condition due to various reasons – lack of appropriate training, medication non-adherence (missed doses due to forgetfulness, delays in the fulfillment of prescriptions, etc.), fear of side effects, and missed appointments to name a few. These lapses become extremely critical for patients with rare (and ultra-rare) diseases.
For a long time, Pharma companies have been seen as ‘drug providers’ with a highly transactional relationship with patients. However, with the advancements in data analytics in recent years, the Pharma industry has now adopted a radically different approach aiming to be a ‘partner in every patient’s journey at every step of the way’. The impact of this approach is most imminent in rare disease therapies where patients require continuous support and engagement (from caregivers and the drug provider). Pharma companies – via their Patient Services organization – work tirelessly to ensure that the patients get easy access to therapy, remain on therapy, and the caregiver/patient needs are taken care of.
With the help of advanced analytics and AI, it is now possible to personalize the patient’s journey and provide actionable intelligence to the Patient Services team for proactive interventions to drive optimal health outcomes. For example:
- AI can help identify key drivers of therapy discontinuation and “never-start” patients
- Turnaround time metrics can help identify any bottlenecks across the patient care continuum
Role of Advanced Analytics (AI Solutions) in the management of Patients and Caregivers
Capturing the holistic experience of a patient can be a challenging task for Pharma companies as there are multiple channels and touchpoints – Support centers, Clinics, Pharmacies, Insurance, caregivers, HCPs, Trainers, etc. For meaningful results, it is imperative to aggregate all this information that is received from the variety of data sources and create a holistic 360° view of the patient journey – to analyze the overall patient experience and inform the patient outreach strategy.
Over the past years, at Tiger Analytics we have collaborated with leading Pharma companies to answer the most pertinent questions in the Rare Disease treatment space in order to design a framework for the holistic 360° view. These questions can be categorized across the analytics complexity spectrum:
1. Descriptive Analytics
a. What is the size of the treatment program?
b. What are the discontinuation and never start rates?
c. How do they change over time?
2. Correlations /Explanative Analysis
a. What are the key drivers leading to discontinuation of therapy?
b. Is there a correlation between continued financial aid through copay programs and time on therapy?
3. What if Analysis
a. What if we decrease our copay support?
b. How elastic is the shipment metric w.r.t size of co-pay support?
4. Predictive Analytics
a. Can we predict who is most likely to drop off therapy?
5. Prescriptive Analytics
a. What are some of the actions to be taken by Field Service Managers?
A major multinational Pharma company chose us at Tiger Analytics as their AI partner to enable them to become a more Patient-centric organization. Through our bouquet of AI interventions, we helped create a 360° view of patient experience to enable the leaders in Patient Engagement & Experience teams to keep a pulse check on the various patient outreach programs and monitor their operational efficiency.
How it works
The Tiger Analytics team provides end-to-end data and AI solutions to empower the client team in answering the above complex business questions. Our solution leverages various data feeds received from multiple touchpoints – HealthCare Prescribers, Insurance providers, Pharmacies, Patient demographics, etc. These data inputs are then transformed into actionable insights where we combine our expertise in Data Engineering, Data Science, App Engineering, and BI reporting, and to further deliver to our client tangible outcomes via continuous improvements through end-user feedback.
With the help of our team of Data Engineers, Data Scientists, and industry experts we develop capabilities and roadmaps for the analytics journey for Patient Services and other associated functions. The analytics support provided by Patient Services organizations is of great benefit to Patient Service Managers, Account managers, Therapeutic Area leads, and other associated functions like Patient Engagement, Vendor Management, etc.
With the foundational pillars and analytical capabilities in place, any Pharma company can therefore make a shift from just being a drug provider, to a support system and care partner, offering patients of rare diseases and their caregivers much-needed support during their very difficult patient journey.
Source:
The future of treating rare diseases | World Economic Forum (weforum.org)
