OBJECTIVES

Patients seek information exchange on their experience with diseases and treatment options in social media. At the same time patient centric programs are offered by the healthcare industry as well as healthcare providers and healthcare associations for many mostly chronic diseases.

The goal of these programs is to support patients in coping with their disease and treatment and to increase adherence to therapy.

The objective of the analysis is to compare the noise made by patients in social media channels and with the provision patient support programs.

METHODS

A web-based research has been conducted in May 2019. Keywords (in German and English language) were “patient support program”, “patient centered programs”. Information were identified, categorized and compared by the following parameters: provider, indication, product, service, level type.

A social media intelligence study focusing on conversations from patients has been conducted for Germany covering share of voice from May 2018 to April 2019. Social media intelligence leverages various technologies to extract information from online sources, aggregate and give meaning to a tremendous amount of unstructured data.

RESULTS

In total 70 patient support programs could be identified, 41 provided by the healthcare industry (59%).

Overall 17 disease areas with over 129 disorders are covered. Most patient support is provided in:

Oncology, Neurology, Cardiology, Pulmonology, Diabetology, Rheumatology, Hematology, Dermatology

Psychiatry, Endocrinology.

Highest noise among patients in social media is in topics and diseases in following order:

Nutrition, Oncology, Psychiatry, Neurology, Immunology, Cardiology, Dermatology, Prosthetics, Hematology, Gynecology. Patients use Twitter, forums, blogs and other media to exchange information.

CONCLUSIONS

Social media exchange and provided patient support programs match in the areas of Oncology, Neurology, Cardiology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, Hematology.

For Nutrition there is a high demand in information and exchange in social media, while only one dedicated patient support program is offered.