Keep it Simple: Designing for the Patient
A chat with Kate Eversole, co-founder of CreateHealth.io
At Next IT, we truly believe that when person-centric care reaches all corners of the healthcare ecosystem, we’ll overcome some of the most daunting global health challenges we face. But to get there, the entire healthcare ecosystem needs to work together to create an engaging and seamless experience for the people that need our care.
This is my second post in a series of interviews with visionaries and pioneers in the health industry — those whose thinking is opening up possibilities for the future, and who are designing and building the future, today.
After recently speaking with Dr. Zubin Damania, founder of Turntable Health, this week I caught up with Kate Eversole, co-founder of London-based CreateHealth.io, a company that specializes in healthcare customer insight. Kate’s all about getting patients directly involved to solve healthcare issues, with a specific focus on helping pharmaceutical companies provide better medication at the right time.
She is another one of our featured speakers at the Next Edge: Health Experience Summit this November, helping set a course for a future that puts people first. I was able to chat with her about some of the challenges she’s experienced firsthand as she works to connect patients with the pharmaceutical industry, both here in the US and overseas.
What are the bottlenecks preventing patient engagement in the current health system?
The biggest challenge we’ve seen isn’t from the patients, but from the internal culture of healthcare organizations.
For example, how quickly can pharma react to a trend? These big companies aren’t famous for being the most agile. How quickly can they get something out of the door?
It’s our role as an agency to support big companies so that they can engage patients and then react in a quick way.
In Europe you can’t directly market to patients. However if, for example, you speak to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) on patient engagement, there’s a lot that can be done from a market research perspective if you don’t talk about product and you manage the conversation — you just need to be transparent and open.
Healthcare companies are often worried about engaging patients in case they raise adverse events. The beauty of using agencies is it means they handle the risk and healthcare companies get the outputs.
What are the biggest challenges to deploying innovative solutions like CreateHealth.io?
I think the biggest challenge has been getting us in the door in the first place.
It isn’t easy getting a new vendor through procurement, especially when it’s a vendor who is trying to get you to do something that hasn’t been done before so there aren’t standards of practice in place. There has been a lot of support from the industry to getting us through these internal hurdles though.
What are some of the most compelling insights you’ve gleaned by directly connecting patients and providers/pharma?
We did an industry first test with AbbVie and created a branded and open crowdsourcing project focusing on Parkinson’s disease and how to define quality of care for people with late stage Parkinson’s.
We had approximately 700 contributors and 200,000 social impressions — this was a huge milestone of what could be achieved, proving it is possible in pharma.
What’s the one problem in the health industry that you aren’t working on but would love someone to address?
I’d love to be able to book my doctor’s appointment online. It seems absurd to me that I can order a flight from my phone but I can’t use the internet to book a doctor’s appointment in London.
What technological advances designed to advance person-centric care are most exciting to you?
Previously the industry took part in market research surveys, ad boards, workshops and traditional qualitative interviews to gather patient opinions. The other trend at the moment is social listening.
If you look at the traditional push/pull model, we are about the pull — how can we pull people into an environment where they are engaged and want to share ideas?
I feel the pull model is the big opportunity — how do we understand what our customers (patients) do and why? And how do we then feed that insight into our system so that we can improve their services?
Any tech that is able to improve customer experience is really exciting. I think there is a big opportunity to use some customer experience tech that is used in other industries; for example Confirmit or Rant & Rave have some great tech that could be adapted to health.
About Kate Eversole:
Kate is the Co-Founder of CreateHealth.io, a customer engagement company that connects customers to companies. She is an experienced multi-channel marketer and researcher who’s an expert in channel optimization, testing and analytics. C-level executives across a diverse array of industries rely on her for her ability to accurately relay the voice of the consumer.
Kate is responsible for the creation and delivery of Europe’s largest sales excellence symposium. Currently, Kate is working with Samsung, Edf energy, RBS and is working with leading pharma companies on CX benchmarking.
Want to help push forward the edge of person-centric care?
Join Kate Eversole, Dr. Damania and other leaders at the Next Edge: Health Experience Summitthis fall in Philadelphia to discuss real world solutions and learn ways to create engaging, inclusive and seamless experiences for the people that need care most.
Reserve your seat today at www.nextedgesummit.com. Join the conversation by following @NextEdgeSummit and using the hashtag #HXsummit.
