Healthcare Providers (HCPs) are often a primary lens for understanding treatment landscapes, patient needs, and product potential. However, we often see a convergence of issues that can impact the authenticity of the insights collected:

• HCPs are often “frequent fliers” which can lead to a participant versus HCP mindset. Many HCPs participate in research on an almost weekly basis, partly driven by the demand of research. And often, the questions we ask as researchers are predictable and don’t challenge HCPs’ thinking. As a result, HCPs can fall into a “participant mindset”, leading to reduced engagement and surface-level answers to frequent research topics and questions.   
• HCPs are humans and susceptible to bias. HCPs’ memory can be clouded by the sheer volume of patient interactions they have on a daily basis. This may make it difficult for HCPs to recall specific dialogue or behaviors and they may inadvertently leave out critical details that give us insight into their reality. In addition, HCPs may have established beliefs about how they perceive and approach certain therapeutic areas, which may lead to missing – or subconsciously ignoring – information that provides important context. 

All of this impacts the depth and accuracy of insights and can lead to missing crucial nuances of the real-world clinical practice that ultimately drives business decision-making. 

The question: How do we more effectively uncover authentic insights rather than practiced answers?

Increasing Authenticity via the Patient Voice: 

Over the years, we’ve found that even the best projective techniques or innovative activities don’t always address the issues of disengagement, bias, or predictability. These techniques can come across as gimmicky to the participant, creating an additional barrier that prevents us from uncovering authentic insights. 

We have found the most success by rooting the HCP in the patient and the patient experience. By leveraging approaches that bring the patient into research, we force the HCP to step outside of the interview context, back into their clinic, and into an “HCP mindset.”

We have created four techniques to help better capture nuances and uncover more accurate insights. An overview of each of the techniques is shown in Figure 1. All four root the conversation in the patient voice and mentally drive HCPs back into the clinic.

Figure 1. Quick snapshot of the techniques, why they bring value, and the research topics where they are most effective. 

A Project Example when Using Lights.Insights.Action™: 

We witnessed the impact and value that Lights.Insights.Action™ delivered on a recent study for a pharmaceutical client, whose oncology asset had been in the market for about a year. The medication had a unique side effect that required unconventional monitoring and management. The client team wanted to better understand the overall adverse event management experience – from the point it was discussed with the patient to when it was actively managed by the HCP – to help uncover barriers to prescribing. 

One hypothesized barrier was that HCPs were presenting the side effect profile in a way that dissuaded patients from wanting to try the product, and this was a key research question the team needed to address. 

A more traditional option would be to directly ask HCPs, “How do you discuss this product with your patients?” This likely would have led to perfectly valid answers, however:

• The low prevalence of the tumor type means there are overall few conversations about the medication, HCPs may have struggled to remember exactly what they discuss with patients and the specific language they use. 
• They may unconsciously tell us what they think they should tell the patient, rather what they actually tell the patient. 

This was the perfect use case for our Lights.Insights.Action™ technique, as we wanted to understand actual – versus stated – behavior, and to hear the specific language used during the patient discussion. The technique integrates a roleplaying exercise by leveraging a patient actor. We gave the HCP necessary background information about the patient and grounded them in the moment: their patient chart, demeanor, and reason for being in the office that day. During the roleplay, the HCP reviewed potential treatment options and explained them as they normally would to a patient and ultimately outlined next steps in the patient’s treatment plan.  

The technique pulled the HCP into the “HCP mindset”. We observed what the HCP actually said, rather than relying on the HCP sharing what they think they say. We heard the natural language they use and picked up nuances in body language and tone. One quote from an HCP participant sums up the value of the exercise: “I said that? I didn’t realize I say that.” 

The research delivered a clear answer to the team’s hypothesized question, and ultimately shaped and prioritized marketing efforts for the brand. 

Figure 2: Quote from an HCP as the moderator probed around their use of certain lexicon.  

The Conclusion: 

All four techniques introduce the patient voice into HCP research. They help circumvent some of the human biases that can surface, such as recall bias and confirmation bias, which can diminish the authenticity of the research results. We’ve found these techniques help increase engagement from HCPs; they find the exercises exciting and interesting, leading to greater depth to their responses. Research teams are also energized by the techniques; they’re more actively involved during research sessions and debriefs, and they’re excited to socialize the insights across the organization. 

These results are not limited to the healthcare space. The Link Group has successfully leveraged these techniques outside of the healthcare vertical, whether replicating sales representative and customer interactions, or further contextualizing target segments. The need for authentic insights is a core need of every research team in every industry. Finding ways to bring authenticity to the forefront creates more impactful and credible results.

Want to learn more?

The Link Group is excited to present more details on this topic at the upcoming IA IGNITE Healthcare session on June 5th. Jeff Whiteside from The Link Group will be presenting alongside Shawn McKenna from Currax Pharmaceuticals. 

We will also be presenting a different case study related to DigitalPersona™ and WorldBuilding™ and the tremendous impact these techniques can have on delivering authentic insights on March 12^th at the Intellus Summit in Charlotte. Laura Bayzle and Jeff Whiteside from The Link Group will be presenting alongside Jen Möller from Pfizer.

The Link Group has had the pleasure of working with North Carolina Arts in Action (NC AIA) over the past seven years. NC AIA, a non-profit organization, empowers children in elementary schools through dance and live music, regardless of abilities and socio-economic status. The pedagogy used by NC AIA teaches students self-confidence, resiliency, critical thinking, and collaboration.

But how can you objectively measure the impact that dance and music have on a child’s ability and school performance?

In this article, we’ll dive into a case study on our NC AIA work and cover how to optimize trackers by using the Donor Impact Framework:

1. Identify donor focus
2. Align with program mission
3. Build new questions
4. Remove irrelevant questions
5. Maintain current questions
6. Reframe questions for impact

Over the past seven years, we’ve partnered with NC AIA to gather more comprehensive data and insights to ensure that the program can continue to deliver meaningful experiences. Each year, students complete a pre-and-post program survey, where we measure significant improvements in self-confidence, attitudes about school, and attention paid in class. We track that data over time to show both the organization and its donors the continued and sustained impact of the program. But after seven years, we wanted to take a fresh look at this tracker. To do this, we created the Donor Impact Framework,which measures the donor attractiveness of key metrics against the focus areas of the program. Aligning these axes allowed us to optimize and refresh the tracker. Let’s take a look at how this framework plays out in action.

Identify donor focus

We knew from qualitative research and anecdotes from the organization’s leaders that donor priorities and needs may have changed over time. So we checked in with key donors to understand what was most important to them and what most impacted their desire to give. We also understood what key parts of NC AIA’s mission were most meaningful to them. This gave us a yardstick against which to measure success of metrics.

Align with program mission

The NC AIA pedagogy had evolved since the tracker’s inception, and they had redefined their mission. We talked with the organization’s leaders and teachers to understand what they most cared about when it came to serving children and what impact they were most interested in measuring that are core to its cause. Armed with this framework, we were able to refresh and reimagine the tracker by identifying which new questions to build into the survey, which to remove, which to continue measuring, and which to reframe.

Build new questions

What key questions are missing from the survey which speak to either donor or program priorities? We found that coming out of the pandemic, donors were focused on wanting to see impact on social-emotional behavior, especially among students in elementary school. While this is not a core tenant of NC AIA, it is tangential to its teaching pedagogy. Therefore, we built a new battery of questions to address this outage.

Remove irrelevant questions

What existing survey questions are no longer relevant to neither donors nor the program? When we first created the survey seven years ago, donors were interested in physical health and so we included a question that showed how the program impacts children’s mindset about exercise. But today, physical health was less of a focus for donors and not a core tenant of the program, so we removed that question.

Maintain current questions

What current questions are getting the job done? As we looked over the survey, most of the questions were addressing metrics which were both important to donors and spoke to the program’s mission. These were questions we wanted to keep in the survey to continue to measure impact.

Reframe questions for impact

What questions need to be asked differently to better measure impact? There may be questions that are important to the program’s focus and mission but aren’t – as written – addressing donor focuses. In our case, we had a question about how the program motivated students to do their best, but the bigger impact for both donors and NC AIA is how the teachers motivated students. This spoke to the relationships built by the teachers and how well they were teaching pedagogy. Therefore, we reframed the question to better capture the impact of the teachers.

When was the last time you looked at your trackers? Taking a fresh look – and using a framework like the Donor Impact Framework – can help make them more streamlined and more impactful for your organization. Determine how current questions align with your organization’s focus, as well as the focus of your audience. Then identify those questions to build, to remove, to maintain, and to reframe.

If you’re ready for a tracker refresh, contact The Link Group today to receive a custom plan tailored to your organization’s needs.