The Patient
Journey – A Holistic Journey
In the first year
of medical school, future medics are taught in their clinical practice training
to make use of the mnemonic acronym SOCRATES in dealing with pain assessment in
their case studies and in practising on the ward. The acronym stands for the
following:
Site – Where is
the pain?
Onset – When did
the pain start, and has it been progressive or regressive?
Character – What
is the pain like? Dull? Stabbing?
Radiation – Does
the pain radiate to other bodily parts?
Associations –
Any other signs or symptoms associated with the pain?
Time course –
Does the pain follow any pattern?
Exacerbating –
Does anything change the pain?
Severity – How
bad is the pain? Can the patient grade it from 1 to 10?
Understanding
truly what is the nature of the patient's pain is part and parcel of the
patient journey, and at i3 Consult we believe that this information should
relay all the through to the market access efforts of pharma? In these days of
patient centricity of the healthcare profession, shouldn't the companies who
actually innovate, develop and supply the medicines be also focusing more on
the patient journey, and therefore would this not also have positive knock
effects for holistic quality healthcare provision?
Pharma may
perceive these questions as beyond their remit but no doubt they deserve
consideration given that the patient journey is an indispensable tool in
devising action plans for patient treatment, implementing support programmes
and in communicating the potential benefits and contraindications of the
medicine during the post licensing phase. By pharma having first hand knowledge
of the ‘patient journey’, it will reveal all the realistic yet unpredictable
factors and hurdles at a much earlier stage of development, rather than the
'rose coloured glasses' view of a patient following treatment guidelines in
perfect circumstances.
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