Clinical excellence is a key component of medical marketing, as patients become increasingly empowered. Dr Mark Rippon considers how we, as marketers, need to rethink the production and presentation of the clinical evidence for our brands.
“Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is a form of medicine that aims to optimise decision-making by emphasising the use of evidence from well-designed and well-conducted research.” (Wikipedia). Although the term 'evidence based medicine' was first coined by David Eddy (1987), the practice of making clinical choices for treatment of patients based on 'good' evidence from scientific or clinical trials was established a good deal earlier in the twentieth century, probably around the time that scientific rigour and peer evaluation was truly instated.
For a time, the underpinnings of evidence based medicine aimed at developing the best possible clinical practice remained true to the original premise. Indeed, there are many instances of EBM providing sound clinical improvements, guidelines for health, establishing institutes such as the Cochrane Collaboration – “Cochrane exists so that healthcare decisions get better”; and NICE – “Producing evidence based guidance and advice for health, public health and social care practitioners.”
However, over time, evidence based medicine has become an overused and even an abused term. A recent paper (Evidence based medicine: a movement in crisis?, BMJ 2014;348:g3725) has highlighted that EBM no longer fulfils its original goals and that development of best practice has been lost in the commercial agglomeration of 'evidence' aimed primarily at accumulating business wealth, rather than being directed at patient well-being.
The recommendations of this paper is diversion of a strategy of EBM with a new direction that is rather more focused on the interactions between the patient and physician, with shared decision-making. “Patients (for whose care the movement exists) must demand better evidence, better presented, better explained, and applied in a more personalised way with sensitivity to context and individual goals.”
What role, then, does traditional Medical Marketing have within this context - now, and for the future? In this 21st century, there's broad agreement among health service professionals that delivery strategies and solutions that involve, provide support and ultimately empower patients and Health Care Professionals (HCPs) are essential to health system reform. Nowadays, terms such as patient engagement, patient involvement and patient empowerment are used to describe these efforts - although HCPs can just as readily be interposed. Thus the focus is on the patient as an active and self-determining part of their own healthcare pathway, rather than a passive recipient of professional support and healthcare that, until recently, has generally been the norm. As such, patient power will (and already does, to a certain extent) play an increasingly important role in informing clinical development. Underpinning this is the fact that patient and HCP insighst provide understanding that can be used to enable clinical development and excellence, while also (from a Medical Marketing perspective) helping to build a better commercial perspective and form the basis of an informed approach that enhances all aspects of a healthcare business strategy.
