Patients at the center: Monitoring changes in personalized care, clinical trial media data, conversations

Whether your goal is to influence healthcare decision makers or connect directly with providers, the patient remains at the heart of storytelling. After all, creating better patient outcomes is the ultimate goal of our healthcare system (well, that and more sustainable profit margins, but stay with us).

Our recent PAN HealthPulse report found that patient experience captured nearly 85,000 mentions between January and August of this year. Health communicators should also take note of an even more interesting trend with personalized care, which experienced a major surge — 192% increase over 2022. 

Insurgence of Personalized Healthcare

From incorporating meal recommendations in care plans for diabetes management to optimizing drug development processes to understanding how AI may shape personalized healthcare decisions, we’re seeing a renaissance of personalized healthcare options. Tangential trends, such as data integration and analytics, precision therapeutics, behavioral interventions, and the impact of AI and machine learning have all driven significant media mentions this year. As such, they should factor into patient-centric awareness campaigns for 2024.

Brands are joining these conversations to build equity and also drive demand for related products and solutions in their offering. For example, earlier this year, PAN client OM1 launched PhenOM, an AI-based platform that collects health record data from more than 300 million patients to uncover  patterns in care journeys and synthesizes them into unique ‘fingerprints’ that help highlight patients of interest to improve individual care and population health. The impact of the solution on personalized medicine has been covered by Fox News, NPR, Clinical Trials Arena, and other outlets, further reinforcing the media appetite for these announcements and discussions. 

Capitalizing on Clinical Trial Innovation

Clinical research is another area of growth, with a 95% spike in mentions year-over-year. Decentralized trials and more inclusive research are huge drivers. Investments from biotech signal greater emphasis on driving change, accelerating the process, and bringing treatments to more individuals. 

Just as AI is becoming a key component of personalized healthcare, it is also fueling innovation in clinical research. PAN partners with eClinical Solutions to help build awareness for its AI offering, elluminate IQ, which surfaces data issues in clinical trials that wouldn’t otherwise be identified in a traditional review approach, reducing manual efforts, improving data quality, reducing cycle times, and ultimately getting treatments to patients faster. Increasing awareness about AI’s potential in clinical research has been a key priority for the company this year. Through our brand building and thought leadership program, PAN has featured eClinical’s POVs on this topic in Healthcare Brew, Applied Clinical Trials, and Outsourcing Pharma, among others, helping the company reach critical audiences. 

But there are challenges that may stifle or delay trial innovation. Clinical trials are highly regulated, with governing bodies continuously issuing new guidelines and compliance designed to keep patients safe. For instance, the FDA draft guidance in May regarding decentralized clinical trial design and implementation drove three times as many mentions in Q2 versus Q1 of this year. These ever-changing laws serve as conversation drivers and opportunities to leverage our clients’ thought leaders to educate sponsors, sites, and patients about what the policies and rules mean for them and how they can be successful. 

Looking Ahead to 2024

As the healthcare industry drives more personalized care and delivers more effective treatments to individuals, we’ll continue to develop and promote the innovations that are making these advancements possible. As we’ve found through our data analysis, patient centricity continues to be the cornerstone of a strategic communications strategy despite the many players and decision makers standing between brands and their goals. We expect this to be center stage at conferences in 2024 starting with JPM in January. 

Stay tuned for more observations as we continue to track developments and conversations across the healthcare landscape. In the meantime, check out the PAN HealthPulse for deeper insights into the trends that matter most to your brand.