Continuing the series of blog posts that we started last week, for the month of July we will be discussing some of the key issues from the Patients Summit in London June 17^th and 18^th. 

For many years, pharma companies have worked with patient associations. This relationship has comprised companies giving funding for educational materials or disease awareness campaigns. As Sinead Tuitte, the Patient Partnership Manager for MSD Ireland mentioned in her session, many patient groups and associations have concerns about pharma’s involvement with their organization and prefer to keep companies at a distance. However, Ms. Tuitte and MSD Ireland were able to move past this traditional relationship and develop true partnerships to meet patient needs and promote health, not just medicine.

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Following up on our post from last week, we are bringing you a series of blog posts that discuss some of the key issues from the Patients Summit in London June 17th and 18th.

Understanding the patient journey is key to creating patient centric strategies. However, the patient journey should be more than a flow chart of the steps that the patient goes through in getting diagnosed and receiving treatment.

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Note: This post is based on the presentation that CEO Michele Derai made at the 2014 PBRIG Winter Education workshop.

Patient empowerment has become a hot topic in healthcare recently. So what does patient empowerment mean and why is it important?

Patient empowerment is the patient’s power over a range of decisions such as provider and treatment choice. Traditionally, patients had very little power, and physicians were viewed as the authority for all parts of care, from problem detection, diagnosis and prognosis, defining health goals and treatment options, implementing treatment and monitoring and evaluating patients. However, the  role of the patient and physician is changing and patients have increasing responsibility across all these aspects of care.

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