📍 Looking for interesting business and patient success stories. Our Alphanumeric podcast Make Your Mark is all about the ways our company, partners, customers, patients, and services navigate the complicated healthcare landscape. Join me, your host, Chris Spohr, senior Director of marketing at Alphanumeric to hear inspiring stories directly from patients and their care.
Learn valuable insights from subject matter experts and hear from some of the brightest on what patient care looks like now and well into the future. Listen now and be inspired to make your mark from the first indications of symptoms all the way to treatment. The patient journey is a scary and unnerving. As a patient, you are very quickly inundated with opinions, educational materials, a wide variety of resources, apps, chat bots, call centers. The list goes on. In this episode, we focus on two very different but very much connected subjects, patient engagement and the patient journey.
Our experts will define each of these areas and bring some clarity to the challenges that patients and their caregivers face every day. Join me now as I talk with both Jared Pack and Jay Baucom for the first part of this three part episode that will dig into the complexities of patient care. So Jared and Jay, welcome number one, uh, to our Make Your Mark podcast series.
Um, we're so happy to have you join this very important talk about the patient journey and patient engagement. If you could, both of you, if you could just start off and, and tell us a little bit about yourself. Jared, why don't you take it 

Yeah, sure, Chris. Thanks. Uh, so I'm Jared Peck. I'm a business development manager here at Alphanumeric.
Uh, my background's on the research side of early stage drug development. Uh, it's early stage drug development's, obviously a very important part of the healthcare ecosystem. You know, without that work, there wouldn't be any medications to get the patients in the first place. Um, but for me it was so early in the process and so far removed from the implementation of care that I felt like, uh, I needed to make a change recently and try to provide more direct impact.
Uh, so I joined Alphanumeric. Early this year, and that's really why I came is, uh, you know, one of the primary functions of our contact centers patient support programs is to help patients navigate through their healthcare journey to answer those questions and educate them. And, and now I get to be, uh, help out and be a small part of that process.
Thanks, Jared. Jay, tell us a little bit about yourself as well and the role that you play here at Alphanumeric
uh, my name is Jay Baucom. I'm Senior Vice President of Global Operations and Chief Information Officer for AlphaNumeric. I am responsible for the, uh, service delivery of our global teams that's providing services and the life science and pharma space.
So let's 
start off first with two phrases that we hear. A. Patient engagement and the patient or healthcare journey. Jared, could you define patient engagement for the audience? And, and, and really what we want to ultimately hear is, is patient engagement and the patient journey different. And how, 
yeah, it's, it's a difficult question cuz patient engagement's, one of those terms that kind of went undefined for a long time, uh, you know, is, is regularly talked about and cited and I think if you, you know, took a bunch of people who work in healthcare or in a peripheral field, And, you know, you took 10 of those people and asked them to define patient engagement, you probably get almost 10 different definitions.
And it's, it's not because no one really knows what it is, it's just because it's a very large and complex issue and there are really several perspectives that sort of change the definition. Uh, so for patient engagement, a broad definition that I think really encompasses the full scope of the issue is that patient engagement is both the patient's desire and ability to choose to be an active participant in their.
And that's in cooperation with a healthcare provider or institution. And the goal of that is to maximize health outcomes or improve experiences of care. Um, so you would say that an engaged patient is someone who has both the desire and ability to be that active participant. But the difficult part to pin down and define here is the part that's, you know, in cooperation with a healthcare provider or the institution.
And that really means that the patient engagement doesn't just consist of actions taken by a patient, which I think is often how it's interpreted. It also involves the actions and resources provided by healthcare providers and institutions and pharma manufacturers, and ultimately, it's dependent on the relationship between those groups and the patient who's receiving the care.
And relationships are inherently complicated because they evolve over time. So I think that's one of the reasons that it's been, you know, sort of, it gets used in a lot of different ways and can be difficult to define. Uh, it, it's uniquely intertwined with the patient journey because so much of patient engagement, revol, it's like in different portions of the patient journey is where patient engagement comes into play.
Uh, but it's really both a behavior and a process. 
Thanks for that explanation. Jared, Jay, now if you could help us out and define the patient journey. 
Uh, absolutely. The patient journey, uh, as we view it is the journey that a patient goes through from, uh, beginning to realize that they have particular symptoms going through the process of, of getting that diagnosis and then depending upon what therapeutic is.
Uh, going through the process of actually getting on that therapeutic and into a treatment regimen. Uh, and then there's the ongoing phase or the adherence, uh, phase of, uh, the treatment or the patient journey that we're really focused on. So we define the patient journey kind of in five major areas. Uh, we believe, uh, the first area is the awareness again, and that begins with symptom recognition.
Uh, and then you, once you get a diagnosis and, and, and education for a particular, uh, diagnosis, then we'd move into consideration then access therapy initiation and ongoing care. So we're focused at all sets of that journey, uh, in improving the patient's, uh, overall quality of. 
Um, so Jared, if we could start off with patient engagement.
Uh, first clear up two terms that we hear a lot that sometimes get used interchangeably, but really should not be patient engagement and patient experience. 
Yeah, so the, so they're very connected. You know, as I described earlier, patient engagement is really that patient desire and ability to choose to participate in their care and, and really comes down to that relationship between the patient and those other entities.
And it, as I mentioned, it's both a behavior and a process, and it's heavily influenced by the environment in which the care is being delivered. But one of the goals is to improve the patient experience, so they are connected. You know, the patient experience, I would say is really the range of interactions that patients have with all of these other entities and can almost be thought of as the quality metric of the relationships that a patient has with each.
It's also a huge compo component of a patient journey, and really all of these concepts are, are intertwined, so it can be difficult to draw clear lines between them. Uh, I like to think of it in, in a couple different examples. If you have a healthcare provider and they have a good idea of what their patients need and how they prefer to communicate, and they take the time to provide, you know, All of the excellent resources and educate that patient, cultivate, cultivate their sense of ownership and control over their own healthcare journey, then that patient's likely going to have a good patient experience.
But that doesn't mean that they'll be engaged. Even the best doctors get patients who don't want to be there and don't care to learn and don't want to take their medication for whatever reason. But alternatively, you could have a patient that does wanna learn and wants to be an active participant, and they're very engaged, but they may have a healthcare provider that's in high demand and is overbooked and can maybe only spend 15 minutes with them every three months.
And this might be a doctor that doesn't have time to learn about all of the potential resources that are available to their patients outside of their immediate practice, and therefore they can't even share that potentially incredibly helpful information. So then you have a patient who wants to engage, but the relationship is a bit one sided and they're really left trying to find additional information and resources on their own, and their patient experience suffers significantly.
And unfortunately, you know, I think both of these scenarios are pretty common. And this is one of the reasons that patient support programs exist outside of, you know, sort of the standard healthcare provider level of care. These are programs that are provided usually by pharmaceutical manufacturers or non-profit organizations, and they serve as an additional resource to patients who have extra questions that they didn't get answered by the healthcare provider.
And they can help patients overcome barriers to access and adherence. So 
what are some of the challenges that you have when trying to. A patient. 
Yeah. I think that, uh, one of the most important challenges that we need to overcome is just achieving a very clear understanding of your patient population and the ways that they prefer to communicate.
You know, if you have a population with mobility issues, it's probably not a good idea to have their primary information resource be in-person appointments with their healthcare provider, right? They might not be able to get to the appointment very easily. A young patient population may prefer to communicate.
Text or email or, or a mobile application. Whereas an older patient population is probably more inclined to just pick up the phone and call, you know, a medical information contact center or a patient support program and just get their question answered right away. Uh, another problem is just letting people know that some of these resources exist.
You know, patients primarily interact with their healthcare provider. There's a ton of extra resources out there. Um, you know, coming back to patient support programs, I think that healthcare providers have a responsibility to stay informed about the programs that are available to their patients and that are related to the prescriptions that they're prescribing.
Um, but I also think there's a responsibility on pharma, pharma manufacturers and non-profits who provide those programs to just make them as accessible as. 
So Jared, from your viewpoint, what are some of the possible solutions to create a more engaging experience for patients that leads to the hope of a more adherent patient population?
I mean, I think at the end of the day, the most important thing is just, you know, meeting patients where they are. You know, which is something we strive for here at often America. If a patient's going to their medications brand website for information because they didn't feel they got enough from the healthcare provider, then the information they're looking for needs to be on that brand site.
And one of the solutions we regularly implement is the conversational AI chat bot on these websites, which I know you and Charlie talked about in depth in the last podcast episode. But you know, if they can't find the information that they need, The portal that they're going to, then they can be transferred to one of our medical information contact centers, uh, where then one of our agents can, can answer all their questions and give them as much information as possible on all the resources that are available to them.
The obvious downside here is that we're still dependent on the patient making the first move and starting that search for. Information. So it's still vital that that healthcare providers are aware of and are sharing information about all of these additional resources. And so much of patient engagement is about the relationship between these resources and the patient.
It has to be able to evolve, and a big part of that is just, you know, listening to patients and evolving to meet their needs. 
Thanks for all that insight, Jared. Now Jay, if we could circle back to you about the patient. If you could in more detail, describe the journey that a patient does or sometimes does not take, and what are some of the main issues out there that affect overall care and adherence?
Uh, good question. So the patient journey, uh, to give you a little bit more depth of how we view the patient journey. The patient journey is really unique to the individual patient. Uh, each patient's journey can be very, Uh, depending upon the diagnosis that they receive, uh, depending upon, uh, uh, the cohort or the demographics that they, uh, belong to.
So we really try to understand the patient, uh, and where and, and what particular journey they're on. And as I stated earlier, we believe that the patient journey consists of five major areas. There's the awareness area, uh, which is kind of the initial, uh, stage of a patient's. And that's where a patient begins to realize that they're having symptoms or something, uh, is different in their personalized healthcare, uh, situation where they, they go out and they, they seek, uh, a diagnosis for what may be going on that's impacting their.
Their health or their, uh, their quality of life. And so once that symptom recognition is, uh, is, is done, then they go for testing and for, uh, you know, the diagnosing stage or the disease staging. Uh, this process can take a very long time for some patients. We deal with patients where, uh, the, uh, uh, it takes three to five years on average to, to get a diagnosis for some of the.
Complex health, uh, situations that our patients are dealing with. Uh, but once they do get that diagnosis, then there has to be an education of the patient about what does that mean for them? What does it mean from a treatment perspective? What does it mean from a, uh, quality of life perspective? And what does it mean from, uh, an ongoing care program that they're now going to be embarking on as part of that patient journey?
Cause a lot of these journeys really don't have an end. Um, uh, some do. The fortunate patients, uh, that can be cured, uh, will eventually see an, an end to that journey. But a lot of our patients that we deal with are on, uh, very long term, uh, life altering, uh, patient journey. Uh, once the awareness and education is done, then a patient moves into what we call the consideration phase, and that's the patient advocacy for treatment.
Uh, uh, it includes what are the treatment options, uh, and defining those for a particular patient, uh, but then also the therapy specific education where, you know, we've, we've, we've educated them on the disease, now we're educating them on the potential the. Uh, and then we also, uh, uh, want to start advocating for this patient as they move into the next phase, which is access.
And access is where you really start to see challenges for a lot of the patients along this journey. And access, uh, uh, deals with coverage and benefits assessment. So we're actually reaching out, uh, and helping that. Uh, deal with insurance companies, deal with doctors, understanding the cost of the particular therapeutic or treatment program that they've been, uh, prescribed for, and then helping to assess their, uh, you know, the access and affordability components of this and getting assistance where there are affordability challenges.
So that's the access phase. Then we move into the therapy initiation phase, and that's where. You know, the dosing and administration education is so critical for a patient because now that they're on the therapeutic, they've been, they've gotten access to the therapeutic, making sure that that patient understands the dosing and administration so that they can self maintain, uh, their treatment programs between, uh, doctor or physician visits.
Uh, but we also need to make sure that any side effects and adverse reactions, uh, Understood, they're documented and that they have a, uh, a, uh, a personalized contact for reporting any of those two. Our contact center to help in that, uh, particular treatment program. Um, we also, in the therapy initiation phase, if there are, uh, adverse reactions, there may be treatment modifications for a particular patient, uh, patient, uh, if they're not reacting well to certain therapeutics.
But then once the patient is on the, on the therapeutic, they understand, uh, how to maintain. Treatment and health plan through this journey, then it really becomes a maintenance phase or an ongoing care phase. And again, education is critical at each step. And so, Helping them, uh, helping the patient understand, uh, you know, why it's so critical for them to stay on a particular therapeutic and how the outcomes can benefit them for staying on.
It really helps enhance the, uh, adherence, uh, part of the patient journey. And then we also wanna make sure that they understand the awareness of the long term benefits and risk of a particular therapeutic or or treatment program. Um, It, it's, we, we've seen time and time again where patients on this patient journey start to feel better, and so they begin cutting back on a particular therapeutic.
And we need to help them understand that, you know, that's going to return them to a lesser state of, of life quality. And so really the adherence part of that in the ongoing care part is, 
Obviously there are a ton of variables that lead to a patient successfully traveling across the treatment journey, and there really is no magic formula out there as each case, each patient is completely different.
What have you seen to be the most 
effective? Uh, that, that's, that's an excellent question, Chris. Um, you know, you're, you're exactly right. Uh, each patient's journey is very much an individualized. No two patients are the same. No, no two patients, uh, circumstances are the same. Uh, so we really believe that, uh, each patient needs a quality tailored, um, uh, support for, uh, their, their journey down that, uh, that patient journey.
And so for. We believe what really impacts that, it, it starts with understanding that that patient journey is tailored to each patient. It begins with understanding that, uh, you need to have the right people engaging with patients to be able to provide that, uh, feeling of support that these patients need to continue on that patient.
And so we really focus on, number one, making sure we hire the right agents. And when I, when I say hire the right agents, I mean those that share the right type of empathy that's needed for this particular type of service. Uh, and, and so we as an organization, we're committed to improving the lives of the patients that we interact with and support on a day to day basis.
And so that vision really needs to be instilled in our agents. Uh, and so it really starts with hiring the right people, then making sure that we tailor, uh, the interactions with that particular patient, uh, in the format that they want to interact with. Uh, there there's very, uh, there's varying degrees of how a patient will want to interact with us as their support mechanism along this.
Uh, some patients. Uh, uh, very adept at new technologies and new, uh, omnichannels of engaging with healthcare professionals and with support agencies. And so we have to be, we have to be, uh, understanding those engagement, uh, trends so that we can engage across a, uh, a very wide spectrum of, uh, of, of ways that people want to interact with us.
Uh, that starts by providing a single point of. When you look at a patient journey, there are, there are many different players that impact the patient and their quality of life and their treatment programs, uh, from the early stage of when they're trying to understand their symptoms and working with healthcare professionals to get a diagnosis through the process of ac accessibility and affordability, whether it's dealing.
Insurance companies are pharmaceutical companies in helping to make that, uh, therapeutic more affordable to them, uh, all the way to the specialty pharmas that may be engaged by a certain insurer to, uh, to provide that therapeutic to the patient. We believe that patients want a single point of contact, so we're focused on being that umbrella.
That gives the patient a single point of contact that has the right amount of empathy and understanding of their particular individualized journey, uh, in order to provide them the most customized service available, uh, to help improve that patient journey and their day to day quality 
of life. Finally, to both Jay and Jared, in your own words, why is it so important that we get this.
Jared, why don't you start us off? 
Yeah, thanks Chris. You know, I'm a firm believer that if something's worth doing, then it's worth doing well, and educating and empowering patients to take an active role in their healthcare journey is something that I think is very much worth doing. You know, almost everyone gets a prescription at some point in their life, and we have the ability to have a positive impact on.
Potentially billions of people in their healthcare outcomes. The healthcare ecosystem is constantly evolving and is a part of that ecosystem. We need to be willing to evolve along with it and ensure that we're operating in a way that provides the greatest good for the greatest number of people. 
Thanks, Jared.
Jay, would love to hear your insights as 
well. Uh, yes, Chris. So we have to get this right because number one, people. Um, we have to get this right because the patients that we serve day in and day out, they did not choose this journey that they're on. Uh, they did not choose the disease that they're dealing with on a day to day basis.
They did not choose the impact that it's made on their particular life journey. And so we as an organization have to get this right. We're committed to improving the lives of the patients that we serve on a day in and day out basis. We're, we're as committed in improving the access to information for other healthcare professionals that may be a part of that patient's journey as well.
And so understanding the, the many moving pieces and parts to a patient journey is critical for us to be able to provide that single point of. The umbrella of understanding what moving pieces and parts have to be, uh, addressed in order to minimize the impact of that patient journey on our patients. And so we have to get it right to improve the quality of life for the people that we serve.
That's what drives us day in and day out, and that's why we are so focused on the patient journey and improving that journey for those we.
Thank you for listening to this episode of Make Your Mark an ER podcast. For more information on Alpha America, go to www.alphaamerica.com and follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. Thank you, and remember to always strive to make your mark.