In a panel discussion that explored some of the ways pharmaceutical companies have approached patient engagement, Paul Gurney, an associate partner with McKinsey & Co., identified an emerging trend among pharmaceutical companies: hiring ethnographers to do research on patient behavior in the context.
The idea is that by focusing on different parts of the patient experience, ethnographers can do a better job of understanding not only what patients tell them but what they observe them doing. They can identify what people want compared with what companies think they want. Given the complex drug regimens many patients have to treat conditions or maintain their health, it can produce the sorts of insights that can make a difference when it comes to things like adherence.
The patient journey goes well beyond the time the person is on a drug therapy. There’s also the part that comes after — survivorship.
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Gurney said he knows of four big pharma companies that have used ethnographers, though he declined to specify them.
“On the topic of ethnography, I’ve seen them being used to better understand the patient journey at a highly granular level and to identify unmet needs that people might not think of during a typical short survey.”
Here’s a clip of Gurney discussing what the ethnographer’s approach entails:
