HCP-Pt Conversations for situational understanding
ZoomRx has used audio from unscripted, real-world clinical appointments to compare the patient experiences between COPD and Asthma. Biologic treatments are not yet available for COPD patients but much of the treatment discussions between the two indications share a lot of similarities. Below we look into some analogous situations from patients with COPD and Asthma and their doctors to see what we can learn from them.
Drivers for Treatment Switch
Treatment decisions are informed by the amount of ad-hoc medication usage patients need, this applies to both conditions, whether the ad-hoc usage is in the form of rescue inhalers, nebulizers, or steroids.
Patient: Yeah.
HCP: And if you're using a Rescue Puffer or a Nebulizer daily, clearly that tells me that it's not as optimally controlled as it could be. So I can't help but think that you might benefit from switching from the Anoro and Spiriva, in fact, if you're using that to just Trelegy once a day by itself.
Target Symptoms
The symptoms doctors focus on improving vary across conditions but have commonalities to them. COPD conversations focused more on general function and quality of life, while Asthma conversations focused on coughing and wheezing episodes. In both indications, the goal is to bring symptoms under control without the need for acute medications.
Patient: It starts a coughing fit and starts a tightness.
Third Person: Okay. Because that is the tiredness, too, because of the hard breathing that he is.
Biologic Discussions For Respiratory Conditions
While not yet available for COPD, biologics are introduced confidently by doctors who are looking to address their Asthma patient's persistent symptoms. Injections are positioned as an infrequent and therefore simpler form of administration, and the symptom benefits are a focus of their discussion.
Patient Mm-Hmm.
HCP Anywhere from every two weeks to every eight weeks depending upon which medicine we choose. It can be every 2 weeks, every 4 weeks or every 8 weeks. Depending upon which medicine that we choose. And what it does is, it gets these things under control to the point where you no longer need to keep taking steroids. I'm sure I've told you many times before that taking too many steroids is not good.
In these examples, we can see that doctors are keeping patient outcomes front of mind when making treatment decisions for their Asthma and COPD patients.
ZoomRx doctor patient dialogue research enables life science companies to hear what’s actually happening at the point of care with their target patient populations.
Click here to access a recent white paper where we look at just how little time patients get to speak during clinical appointments.
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