Building Successful PSPs: 5 Essential Elements

But as care provision and health-related services become increasingly more digitized, expectations shift. Providing the right tools, accurate information and personalized support during the patient journey is now more essential than ever.

In this ever-growing digital economy, patient support programs (PSPs) go hand-in-hand with achieving optimal treatment outcomes. Effective programs that support the patient from diagnosis through treatment pathways can make a fundamental difference to their quality of life, regimen adherence and overall health outcomes. 

Today, improving, standardizing and extending patient support programs is a top priority for most pharmaceutical firms, and for good reason. An increasing number of patients fail to adhere to their treatment regimen each year, leading to unfavorable care outcomes and worsened health conditions.

In this article, we’ll explore five key tenets for a successful patient support program and the steps pharma firms can take to ensure effective deployment, improved patient engagement and more positive humanistic outcomes.

Successful PSPs are not one-dimensional. To truly address complex, unmet patient needs, pharmaceutical companies need to comprehensively act on the different perspectives of internal and external stakeholders engaged in patient care. This can include HCPs, nurses, providers, insurers, caregivers and more.

Co-creation is essential for mutual buy-in and advocacy. Stakeholder workshops, surveys and requirement mapping can contribute toward a well-balanced program that achieves buy-in and shared direction for the benefit of the patient. Once information from all stakeholders has been obtained, it’s crucial that pharma-sponsored PSPs are built involving the cross-functional teams from an early stage to ensure a smooth approval process and a timely launch.

An effective PSP caters to different requirements and regulations by country and patient segment. It evolves over time with a patients’ context and needs. PSP operational teams should consider practical barriers to full adherence, including access to refills, commuting to appointments, treatment administration and access to tools and information. A “one size fits all” approach will not be effective or relevant to all individuals.

Equally, while economies of scale and consistency can help reduce the cost of a PSP when it’s implemented in multiple countries, there can be no complete standardization. Teams must be prepared to navigate different regulatory frameworks, treatments, journeys, behaviors and languages. It’s crucial to build a PSP that can be localized, while operating in a consistent way. Consider designing a modular infrastructure with smart technology to accommodate flexible PSP builds. This allows the roll-out of localized instances based on regional regulations, legislation and cultural affinities, but still respects a common framework in a controlled environment.

Relevance is crucial to achieving patient engagement and the subsequent positive influences on adherence and health outcomes. Patient adoption and adherence is the primary outcome of any successfully implemented PSP – but it’s also critical to ensure mutual buy-in from all participating stakeholders. By mapping the patient journey and connected behaviors, PSP operationalists will be able to optimize enrollment based on the different friction points that contribute to early attrition and ineffective onboarding. They typically include:

To ensure relevance and effectiveness, a patient support program must be adaptive to the patients’ changing behaviors and journeys – alongside a wide range of changing business and program factors, including:

Pharma firms must be prepared to implement feedback from patients and stakeholders to continually move the needle on PSP engagement. This can be based on both direct feedback (patient) or from behavioral insights or trends in engagement data. By adapting a program through consistent evaluation and optimization, it becomes more relevant and sustainable for all involved parties.

In the rapidly evolving landscape of healthcare, the pivotal role of Patient Support Programs (PSPs) cannot be overstated. As the digital transformation of care provision continues to unfold, patients are confronted with the complexity of managing chronic diseases in an increasingly interconnected world. Recognizing the significance of effective support programs, pharmaceutical firms are placing a heightened emphasis on improving, standardizing and extending these initiatives.

Ultimately, the best PSPs encompass all five elements listed above and their approach harnesses data, technology and processes, delivering an effective ecosystem for all involved. We call this a Connected Care Ecosystem, in which the PSP is truly integrated across all stakeholders and technology platforms.

Looking to build an effective Patient Support Program (PSP)? Harte Hanks can help. With over 15 years of experience in designing, developing and delivering Connected Care ecosystems, we can deliver bespoke programs that address patient and HCP needs at every stage in the treatment journey. From starter kit distribution and onboarding to personalized SMS reminders and regional content, we design with you to implement and deliver disease management tools that help every patient take control over their condition.