m3university patients a new perspective...new or existing relationship. building these partnerships...

PATIENTS: A NEW PERSPECTIVEWithin Healthcare Market Research

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CONTENTS AND INTRODUCTION

� Patient First Approach

� Key Elements to Invitation Design and Recruitment Sensitivity

� Support Group Process and Partnerships

� Cultivating a Rewarding Research Experience

We all know someone who suffers from a medical condition. Maybe it’s a coworker or a loved one or even yourself. It’s a part of all our lives and is also an active part of the medical market research community.

This paper walks you through the recruitment methodologies M3 Global Research uses for patient recruitment, timelines, patient sensitivities to be mindful of, and the key things to note about partnership relationship building.

3www.M3GlobalResearch.com • © 2019 M3 USA Corporation. All rights reserved. • Last updated on 6 September 2019

THE PATIENT FIRST APPROACH

We should always be thinking of the Patient First Approach. There is a lot to consider when designing your research study.

Length of InterviewThe length of an interview should be concise, being respectful of the patient’s time, while also allowing enough time for their perspectives to be heard and accomplishing your research objectives. Generally, qualitative engagements will run 60 minutes or less, while quantitative surveys will be 30 minutes or less.

MethodologiesThe methodologies being used also have to be considered with this target audience. Be mindful of disease limitations when thinking about web-assisted interviews, or traveling to a studio, as these may not always be possible within the therapeutic area you are researching. Some methodologies may not fit within the subject or patient abilities, i.e., online bulletin boards for patients with eye conditions will not be the best fit. Telephone interviews are a viable option for lower incidence targets to achieve a nationwide reach.

If the research requests patients to perform homework, make it an exciting exercise, allow enough time for completion and, have multiple options for returning the assignment, either by mail or digitally, or make it optional. You will also want to include information about why the assignment is important to entice completion.

TimelinesFor a US qualitative patient research study with a lower incidence, four or more weeks of recruitment time is necessary. For an international study, six or more weeks is required. Additional recruitment time is needed on patient studies to engage with patients, work around their schedules (doctor appointments), and personal conflicts.

Additionally, time is needed to network with support groups for recruitment and partnership building. This may take up to a week or more to share the information of the study, your company profile, and information about market research in general with the group.

FlexibilityIt’s important to be flexible with patient research. Build in and allow time for reschedules if someone is not feeling well or their schedule is impacted by treatment. It is human interactions that we must be considerate of, so it is crucial to have empathy. With that said, the challenge is to maintain a good balance of keeping our client’s timeline and budget in mind as well.

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QuotasAlways be mindful of the quotas and demographics requested by the client. The pool of patients becomes limited in the universe when looking for specific disease states, so it will not always be representative of the population. You want to avoid backing yourself into a corner and making recruitment impossible. Only select the most important screening criteria and quotas that are absolutely necessary. It’s essential to educate your client on the way the data will skew if certain demographics or locations tie into the therapy area and how it will impact the research.

KEY ELEMENTS TO INVITATION DESIGN AND RECRUITMENT SENSITIVITY

Invitation Design

Acknowledge the importance of the patients' participation.Always verbally acknowledge and value the importance of the patients’ participation. Whether the communication is done over the phone or by email, it is imperative to express how important it is to have them participate in our studies—not only because that is indeed true, but because this approach will also encourage them to participate.

Make the invitation stand out as a unique chance for them to share their opinion.Instead of addressing participants generically as patients or caregivers, it’s preferable to address them as men, women, parents of children aged 8-12, etc.

Clearly communicate the topic, study purpose, methodology, and steps to participate.For many people this will be the first time they have ever participated in a market research study, so everything is new. Consider the participants’ possible lack of market research experience and the importance of helping them understand the benefits of participation.

It’s essential to clearly communicate the topic and aim of the study, as well as the methodology and the steps that the respondent will go through. In the case of qualitative studies, there will be screening, booking, confirmation, re-screening, etc. Even if they are somewhat experienced, it’s still important to be clear on the methodology—for example, the platforms that we use for WATIs—as well as the process deployed for payment.


Remember: Research participants are people too.Always address possible respondents accurately. Generally, people do not consider themselves to be a “patient” unless they are in the hospital, or at their doctor’s office. An individual just thinks of themselves as a person living with a chronic condition, or as a person who has had a treatment, procedure, or takes a certain medication.

Similarly, people do not consider themselves to be a caregiver to someone unless they are a paid caregiver, or if caring for a relative with a very serious condition that requires constant supervision. An individual simply thinks of themselves as the spouse, partner, or parent of a person with a certain condition.

So, although the terms “patient” and “caregiver” are used often in market research to describe a certain population, these terms shouldn’t be used in direct communication with participants, including emails, phone calls, website messaging, etc. Using these terms could make a respondent less likely to click on the link or start the screener.

Recruitment Sensitivity

See the respondent beyond “a complete”.The people we are seeking for studies are not just a patient, they are a regular person before anything else, and they are not participating in our studies as a professional figure the way doctors do. They are sharing their private—many times very sensitive—experience. So, we need them to see us as trustworthy, empathetic, and patient. Some recruiters on the M3 Global Research team have spent an hour or more on the phone with a patient because s/he wanted to talk about his or her journey.

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Acknowledge the effort of the respondent.Appreciate participation throughout recruitment, because—especially when dealing with therapy areas such as cancer or rare conditions that deeply affect people’s lives—the respondent is in an extremely vulnerable and difficult situation. The fact that s/he is willing to take part in a study and spend, in some cases, over an hour speaking precisely about his or her condition, cannot be overlooked. It needs to be acknowledged and appreciated.

Understand specific patient challenges to scheduling.At M3, we have experienced many cases of respondents cancelling or not showing to an interview because they were feeling sick or drowsy after chemotherapy, for example. This shouldn’t come as a surprise and needs to be taken into account. For this same reason we should avoid long screeners and interviews. This will help with recruitment and improve the patients’ experiences participating in market research.


SUPPORT GROUP PROCESS AND PARTNERSHIPS

Relationship Building

Building relationships with support and advocacy groups is a big time commitment. Something that we’ve been doing at M3 is building relationships with support and advocacy groups, both locally and nationally.

When you plan to use support groups on a custom recruit or are thinking of having them as part of your sample plan, keep in mind that additional time may be needed upfront, to build either a new or existing relationship.

Building these partnerships takes time and patience and can take sometimes up to a few weeks to connect with the right person to talk to about potentially working together. For example, M3 ran a project on cystic fibrosis and it took just under four weeks to connect with the decision maker of the group, to start a conversation about assisting on a project. In the end, it was a big success but provides an idea of what to potentially expect regarding timelines.

Engage with partners that have…

� Difficult and/or hard to reach patient types. When we at M3 Global Research are looking for patient groups to partner with, we find ourselves reaching out to those who are among the more difficult and/or hard to reach patient types with smaller population conditions. These are niche communities that can bring momentous insight.

� Patient advocate insight. Recently, we’ve seen a trend where patient advocates are becoming a target of interest and what better way to secure a partnership than interviewing the initial contact themselves. The organizers and staff are great to work with, they have so much to say and we’ve found them to be very helpful to provide insight on the condition their foundation is focused on.

� Resources outside of the MR space. Wake Research, a sister company of M3 Global Research, is a clinical trial company that we engage with on certain projects because they have a patient panel that M3 can access for possible participation in market research studies.

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Provide a Welcome PacketThe M3 Global Research Welcome Packet helps new patient advocacy groups and organizations understand their important role in MR, and answers frequently asked questions. Creating a welcome packet, specifically for new partner relationships, has helped drive these conversations.

M3's packet includes:

� Background on healthcare market research: When M3 reached out to patient groups for the first time, we found ourselves really needing to dive into the basics of healthcare market research, as most groups are not familiar with MR at all.

� Company overview: We provide basic information about M3 Global Research and how we work with our HCP and patient respondents.

� Importance of the patient voice and journey: M3 wants patients to be able to share their journeys with others, and partnering leads to more and more patients having this opportunity.

� Compliance information and our privacy policy: M3 strives to ensure we are transparent with our compliance and privacy policies. With both being such hot topics these days, it’s important for us to let these groups know we take compliance and privacy seriously and make sure everyone feels protected as we move forward with our partnerships.

Cost and Engagement

Local Groups are More Willing to PartnerWhen looking at groups from a budgetary standpoint, we find that local groups are more willing to partner directly and there are some key benefits to these partnerships.

Smaller donationsLocal groups often have smaller donation amounts and we see the range being either a flat donation to post a link, or an ad on their website and/or social media page or we could see a cost per member referral.

Per referral basisA lower cost is more budget-friendly for a project. Of course, costs can vary and do add up quickly, but utilizing local groups doesn’t have to break the bank.


When to engage:

� Small to medium sample sizes: When engaging local groups, it makes sense for projects that have small-medium sample sizes.

� Extra boost to panel invites: These projects may also need an extra boost to support internal panel invites.

� Studio projects: If you have a project local to a central location, we can search the area for any local groups that may be able to support the patient type you are looking for. This may not always be an option, there may not be groups we can work with local to a facility, but it is something our team can look into when scoping out a project.

� Local events: Another time to engage a local group is if you have interviews being done around conferences or if you want to recruit patients at a walk/run specific to the condition you are researching. If you know that you’ll be doing research in a select city or select markets within a specific therapeutic area, we can even source events with local groups in those markets to build a special panel to support your research.

National Groups are More Reluctant to PartnerWhen it comes to national groups, they tend to be a little more reluctant to partner and it tends to be a little more time consuming to find the appropriate person to build a relationship with.

Larger donationsUnlike the local groups, the national groups often have larger donation requirements and don’t really want to work on a per referral basis. Larger donations mean a little more budget is needed, but there are some key benefits to working with the larger national groups.

When to engage:

� Larger sample sizes: When engaging national groups, it makes sense when there is a larger sample size, and sometimes that may even mean the budget might be a little more in line with what the national groups tend to charge in their flat donation requirements.

� Harder to reach audiences: Another example of when to engage is for the harder to reach audiences, where we need to maximize our reach to find those with the condition of interest.

� Events such as 5k runs, conferences, panel build: Events and conferences are a great way to connect with patients, caregivers, and advocates. While there are many local groups that attend events and conferences within their own communities, national groups will have a presence as well.

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Another reason to engage with a national group is for panel building as mentioned earlier. If a client knows that it will be doing research with a specific therapeutic area, M3 Global Research can source events with national groups to build a special panel to support that research, as well.

Timelines

Relationship Building is Time Consuming

Groups are hesitant to partner, protecting their patient following. Because building relationships is time consuming and there is often some hesitation to partner, consider providing detailed project notes, a discussion guide, letter, or list of objectives from the end-client explaining the research purpose—this may help ease any hesitation groups may have from the start of the conversation.

Negative feedback.Negative feedback or experiences can impact followers, donations, and relationships. It’s important to have flexibility to provide information on who and what you are looking for. And address any questions or concerns that may come up to avoid an overall negative experience.

A project with a low incidence rate (IR) won’t be an ideal project to work on with support groups. If you anticipate a low IR, consider providing a list of qualifying criteria to the group to keep the experience as positive as possible. This way, you will not have a large volume of patients screening out and having a negative outlook on market research.

Most importantly, keep in mind that support groups are in place to support patients, not to participate in market research, so negative experiences can impact the support group’s image from their followers to their donations and relationships.

Quick turnarounds are not ideal. You need time to network and build relationships with support groups; we suggest anticipating a minimum of four weeks. Keep in mind that documents need to go through legal processes to finalizing materials with appropriate wording. Member referrals take time and we need to set all teams up for success and build in time for securing partnerships, member referrals, rescreening, etc. Quick turnaround timelines are just not possible when needing to use support and advocacy groups.


Market research can produce a specifi c research fi nding, solve a business issue, and allow the patient community to be heard. Giving the patient community a voice is instrumental in keeping all sides in the medical community at the forefront of business decisions. Your involvement in medical MR, speaking with patients, and including them in your reports and fi ndings continues to keep patient voices in the light. It is a part of our corporate responsibility at M3 to give back to the patient community in any way that we can. Spend a few minutes with the respondent, ask how their day is going, how they are feeling, sympathize with them, listen to their stories. We are not just talking to the physicians and nurses, but also to the patients who live with the products, equipment, and medicines every day.

CULTIVATING A REWARDING RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

Key ImpactListen to the patients; let their voices be heard

Include All Sides of the StoryPatients, physicians, nurses, and decision makers

Patient ConnectionsExperiences, hopes, and struggles

m3university patients a new perspective...new or existing relationship. building these partnerships...

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