The Value of Patient Perspectives in Answering Key Business Questions

Published March 1st, 2024 | 3 Minute Read

Patient input is vital from a commercial, research, and clinical perspective. They alone are the experts in their experience with a given condition. Enhanced understanding of the patient experience can help ensure that communications are clear and relevant to the target audience to help identify and drive patient-centered solutions and care strategies. 

For over a decade, Health Union has regularly fielded condition-specific surveys within its growing portfolio of online health communities to bring the voice of the patient to the forefront. These surveys have collected thousands of responses from patients and caregivers living with a range of chronic and complex conditions. They have become deeply valuable sources – to both Health Union and industry partners – of timely, relevant, patient-reported data that offer genuine insight into the patient experience.

In recent years, Health Union’s syndicated offerings have expanded to better meet client needs, ranging from high-level reports for clients seeking condition overviews or specific data points to comprehensive reports that take an in-depth look at the patient experience. Core components of Health Union’s syndicated program include:

In America, an annual IRB-approved survey that collects condition-specific feedback from over 30,000 respondents, across 50 conditions. This streamlined survey provides high-level insights into condition impact as well as treatment awareness, use, and satisfaction and offers an opportunity to examine similarities and differences across conditions.

Patient Experience, a condition-specific, in-depth, IRB-approved research program, that focuses on quality of life, unmet needs, HCP dynamics and relationship, disease burden, treatment awareness, and treatment experiences — with quota-sampling to better represent important subgroups.

These core components mean that Health Union can now better help clients:

  • Understand condition-specific patient journeys
  • Validate target patient profiles (in terms of demographics, disease burden, treatment experiences, and information-seeking)
  • Construct brand user profiles and how they compare to others using a competing product
  • Explore varied condition experiences and the changes that occur according to line of therapy or disease stage
  • Augment situation analyses and/or RWE or HEOR-related analyses 

Health Union’s syndicated research harnesses patient driven insights to help brands develop foundational knowledge from the patient perspective. 

Want to know if Health Union offers syndicated reports in a specific condition? The full range of available and upcoming research reports can be found here

Interested in learning more? We invite you to fill out the form below.

Related Articles

Let’s Talk About IBS: What people with IBS want others to know

IBS can cause gastrointestinal symptoms that have a substantial negative impact on one’s life, which is often amplified by the condition’s impact on a patient’s emotional well-being. The “IBS In America 2018” survey conducted by Health Union gathered insights from over 1,500 people currently suffering from IBS to better understand the condition’s impact on their lives. The survey found that 45% of people with IBS are apt to experience anxiety or panic disorders, with stress also being a trigger for many patients.

Prostate Cancer Survey Highlights Impact on Social, Emotional Well-Being

The emotional impact of prostate cancer – from diagnosis to side effects from treatments – often outweighs the physical impact, according to “Prostate Cancer In America,” a national survey by Health Union, LLC of men with prostate cancer and their caregivers.

SCOPE 2018: Online Health Communities Fill Gap Between What Patients Want, Researchers Need

Online communities fill a void for people with chronic health conditions, offering information, emotional support and connection to others with common experiences. By fostering relationships with members of these online health communities – through relevant content and engaging social conversations that touch on and validate the personal experiences of living with certain chronic conditions – Health Union has the rare opportunity to more accurately understand the concerns of people with these conditions.

Related Articles

Childhood onset migraine and adult outcomes: A retrospective survey

Partnering with University of Chung-Ang and University of Colorado, this abstract showcases data from Health Union’s Migraine In America 2015 survey.

A person and their doctor

Cancer Patients More Satisfied With Doctors Than Autoimmune Patients Are

More than 8 in 10 cancer patients reported a high level of HCP satisfaction, while just over 6 in 10 patients with autoimmune conditions felt the same way.

Health Union Announces Multiple Poster Presentations at the 40th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine

Research from Health Union’s Chief Community Officer Amrita Bhowmick, MPH, MBA, and Executive Director of Community Development Sara Hayes, MPH, and co-authors will be shared at the 40th Annual Meeting & Scientific Sessions of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM). The poster sessions featuring research from two of Health Union’s online health communities, Migraine.com and LungCancer.net, will be presented at the conference, which takes place on March 6-9, 2019 in Washington, D.C.