Unlocking the Power of Behavioral Science for Healthcare Communications with William Hind Alpharmaxim TRANSCRIPT

Empowered Patient Podcast

William Hind, agency principal at Alpharmaxim, highlights that traditional methods of educating patients and physicians may not effectively drive behavior change. Applying behavioral science in healthcare communications is a way to understand the barriers to adopting new medicines and therapies and patient and provider reluctance to change. Behavioral science will become increasingly helpful for the pharmaceutical and medical tech industries to ensure that novel therapies, wearable devices, and at-home diagnostic equipment are successfully marketed to the right patients at the right time with accurate information.

William explains, "At present, there's a great deal of needed emphasis on educating people about diseases and any therapies that come forward. However, it may not be a lack of information inhibiting prescribing clinicians or patients from adopting a new medicine. It may be that it's an old habit of physicians, or it may be that the patients have accepted a regimen that they are reluctant to move away from. So it's about the need to try and discover all of the different aspects of what might be acting as a barrier in making sure that new medicines are adopted as quickly as possible."

"When it comes to behavioral change, I don’t think people realize quite what a science it is. You know, it's firmly rooted in psychology and sociology. There is clear evidence supporting its use. We use the COM-B model, a well-reputed approach to defining barriers. This is interesting because pharmaceuticals, in particular, and patient communications are all heavily dependent on the data and evidence, yet the way they communicate is usually governed by habit. We're trying to encourage people to look at what's needed to shift behaviors instead of just relying on habitual communication."

"There is a wealth of examples where behavior science is being used very successfully in consumer advertising and in the kinds of scenarios you mentioned. There's a lot of work in that area, but even there, real behavioral science is still on the fringes. It's not routinely adopted. So what we need to do is make sure that it is better understood. In pharmaceuticals, it isn't as adopted anywhere near as much as it should be or could be, especially given what's at stake."

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