Medical Affairs’ Role in Patient Engagement Activities

Best Practices, LLC undertook benchmarking research to produce industry metrics on key aspects of Patient Engagement Programs including collaboration, activities, support, and involvement. In particular, this report delivers benchmarks around Medical Affairs’ role and responsibilities in different patient engagement activities like patient health outcomes, advocacy, education and medication adherence. It also highlights the patient engagement activities/strategies that work best for each group of stakeholders and provides insights into the critical lessons learned and pitfalls.

Responses in this report are presented into two segments: Regional Segment: US-Only and Global and Company-Size Segments: Large Companies and Small Companies

Study Snapshot

Best Practices, LLC engaged 39 Medical Affairs leaders from 29 biopharmaceutical companies in this research through a benchmarking survey. Almost 85% of the participants are at the level of senior director or above.

Responses are presented into two segments: Regional Segment: US-Only (N=15) and Global (N=16) and Company-Size Segments: Large Companies (N=25) and Small Companies (N=14)

Key topics covered in this report include:

1. Roles and Responsibilities:

• Patient Health Outcomes
• Patient Advocacy Groups
• Patient Education Programs
• Patient Medication Adherence Programs

• Medical Affairs Groups
• Internal/External Frequency
• Internal/External Effectiveness

Key Findings

• Own Patient Health Outcomes Programs: Medical Affairs must lead data generation to understand patient needs. Larger companies have greater role in patient outcomes than smaller companies (68% vs. 36%).
  
  
• Engage Patient Advocacy Groups: Collaborate with patient advocacy in early stages. Evolve advocacy services throughout the lifecycle. Structure more formal channels to communicate with advocacy groups.

I.	Executive Summary	pgs. 3-7
	Research Overview	pg. 3
	Participating Companies	pg. 4
	Segmentation	pg. 5
	High-Level Recommendations	pg. 6
	Key Findings	pg. 7
II.	Lessons Learned	pgs. 8-11
III.	Importance and Involvement in Patient Engagement Activities	pgs. 12-34
	Patient Health Outcomes Programs	pgs. 14-18
	Patient Advocacy Groups	pgs. 19-23
	Patient Education Programs	pgs. 24-28
	Patient Medication Adherence Programs	pgs. 29-33
IV.	Collaboration with Internal and External Groups	pgs. 35-42
V.	Role in the Patient Journey	pgs. 43-47
VI.	Participant Demographics	pgs. 48-52
VII.	Appendix A: Voices from the Industry	pgs. 53-64
VIII.	Appendix B: Segmentation Graphs	pgs. 65-86
IX.	About Best Practices, LLC	pgs. 87-88

• Critical elements of strong patient engagement
• Key lessons learned about allocating medical affairs investment to the highest impact areas across the patient journey
• Pitfalls or stumbling blocks observed for marketing teams as they invest in the patient journey
• Medical Affairs’ organization’s role with different patient engagement programs
• Overview of Medical Affairs’ role and the value it places on patient health outcomes activities
• Importance of different activities in building a successful patient health outcomes program within Medical Affairs group
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient health outcomes activities
• Patient health outcomes activities: Role vs. High importance
• Overview of Medical Affairs’ role and the value it places on patient advocacy activities
• Importance of different activities in building a successful patient advocacy program within Medical Affairs group
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient advocacy activities
• Patient advocacy activities: Role vs. High importance
• Overview of Medical Affairs’ role and the value it places on patient education
• Importance of different activities in building a successful patient education program within Medical Affairs group
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient education activities
• Patient education activities: Role vs. High importance
• Overview of Medical Affairs’ role and the value it places on patient medication adherence
• Importance of different activities in building a successful patient medication adherence program within Medical Affairs group
• Medical Affairs organization’s role with different patient medication adherence activities
• Patient medication adherence activities: Role vs. High importance
• Involvement of specific parts of Medical Affairs organization in patient engagement activities (internal collaboration)
• Collaboration of Medical Affairs function with internal and external groups on patient engagement activities
• Frequency of collaboration with key internal groups on patient engagement activities
• Frequency of collaboration with key external groups on patient engagement activities
• Effective strategies for internal collaboration
• Effective strategies for external collaboration
• Effective approaches in supporting patients at the early stage of their disease
• Effective approaches in supporting patients at the late-stage of their disease