Real-world data and shaping the future of healthcare 

1. Understanding symptom and disease burden

With RWD, we can measure the burden a disease and its symptoms have on a patient. Controlled clinical trials offer limited insight, whereas RWD enables us to understand the lived experience of patients in real-world settings, giving us a deeper understanding of how diseases impact daily life.
What’s more, continuous data collection, such as through wearable tech and digital platforms, allows us to assess the burden of a disease more effectively. This includes how patients manage symptoms and how treatments affect those symptoms and their quality of life. This insight can be crucial in the development of effective messaging for both patients and healthcare practitioners (HCPs).

RWD also plays a crucial role in identifying patterns in patient behaviour that contribute to how well patients adhere to their treatment plan. Medication adherence is clearly crucial in ensuring treatment is as effective as possible. However, adherence remains a challenge, leading to poorer health outcomes and often a skewed view of how effective a treatment can be.

For example, a significant study in 2019 demonstrated how patient-reported data on social needs can help to clarify the complex relationship between social factors and chronic disease burden. By incorporating this data into clinical practice, healthcare providers can gain a more comprehensive understanding of the factors contributing to disease burden and develop more targeted interventions to address both medical and social needs.

By recognising these patterns, we can make informed and proactive adaptations to treatment guidelines, such as adjusting dosing recommendations and designing more effective interventions and support solutions. Improved adherence and better patient outcomes increase patient engagement with their healthcare providers, which ultimately builds loyalty and trust with your brand as HCPs see that you’re doing everything you can to support patients with the medication in question.

2. Designing patient engagement support solutions

As alluded to above, RWD is transforming how pharma companies design patient engagement and support solutions, helping to create more personalised and effective approaches. By analysing the real-world experiences of patients, such as their treatment outcomes and adherence barriers, pharma companies can identify key pain points and tailor solutions to meet specific patient needs. For instance, RWD can uncover reasons why patients may stop treatment or fail to adhere to their medication regimes, such as side effects or lack of understanding about their condition.

Armed with these insights, we can design targeted interventions that support patients in overcoming these obstacles. RWD can also enable us to monitor the effectiveness of these interventions and adapt support strategies as required. For example, when a digital platform is introduced to support patients with medication management, RWD can show how frequently patients use the platform, how their adherence improves and whether their overall health outcomes change.

Using tech-based interventions, such as mobile apps and remote monitoring, has shown significant promise in improving adherence and healthcare outcomes. By harnessing the power of RWD, we can better understand which tools are most effective for which patient groups.

All this not only leads to better health outcomes but also drives patient engagement and satisfaction and HCP loyalty. The more patients are supported in adhering to their prescribed treatments, the more likely they are to continue their medication as intended, leading to improved long-term health outcomes.

By leaning on RWD to refine patient support strategies, companies not only improve patient care but also ensure a more consistent revenue stream with higher clinician confidence and better patient engagement. In this way, RWD offers a win-win scenario of personalised care that better meets patient needs at the same time as driving business growth.