Digital patient engagement changing support programs for better outcomes

In a recent webinar, industry experts shared insights on how digital patient engagement strategies are transforming patient support programs.

The presentation, featuring Oliver Dunford, vice president of life sciences at Relay Network, and Angela Cornacchia, director of patient experience, patient access services, at Alkermes, revealed data from over 500,000 patient interactions across 26 specialty and rare disease brands.

"We’ve seen a transformation from phone calls to rudimentary SMS solutions and now to digital strategies and tools,” Dunford said, highlighting the evolution of patient engagement approaches. “Digital strategy is now considered mandatory even for pre-commercial launches.

Oliver Dunford, vice president of life sciences, Relay Network

“The idea here is that the text message is proven to be the best mechanism of getting someone’s attention and driving them somewhere,” he continued.

Dunford noted that the data came from a half million interactions sent from the Relay Network, a technology platform that combines text messages with a personalized patient scrolling feed.

Dunford emphasized that early engagement with patients significantly impacts long-term adherence. Customers who support patients early in their journey see a 23% higher click-through rate to adherence-related communications. “Even though it’s more complicated to manage things like access through these tools, it’s absolutely worth doing in terms of outcomes and general levels of engagement,” Dunford said.

Patients demonstrated willingness to participate actively, with an 86% action rate on program and HIPAA authorization and an 80% action rate on insurance card capture.

Dunford’s data also showed that immediate follow-ups generate 29% higher click-through rates than responses delayed by several hours.

Angela Cornacchia, director of patient experience, patient access services,
Alkermes

Cornacchia shared her metrics from Alkermes’ implementation of the Relay Network platform.

“We’re seeing 45% of our patients engage in that very first welcome call message,” she said. “And an exciting metric that we follow is that 68% of our patients are engaging in at least one of the messages that we send out.”

The transition from basic SMS to more sophisticated platforms has shown improvements, she noted. “When we first looked into launching a texting platform, we went with just a straightforward SMS program, and we were seeing 90% of our patients texting back STOP,” Cornacchia said. “After we launched with Relay, our opt-out rate is less than 10%.”

Patient journey

The presenters broke down the patient journey into four key segments—onboarding, coverage, access, and adherence—sharing best practices for each phase.

Onboarding

Data show that introducing digital tools at the point of care proved most effective, with patient consent management achieving an 80% click-through rate and 92% action rate when properly implemented.

“Personalization is key here,” Dunford said. “Downloadable contact cards and specific case manager introductions significantly boost trust and engagement.”

Key strategies included:

• QR codes on enrollment forms linking directly to digital experiences

• Downloadable contact cards that identify program communications on patients' phones

• Clear explanation during welcome calls about how digital tools will support the patient’s journey

Coverage

The coverage phase showed the highest engagement metrics across the patient journey, according to Dunford. Financial assistance programs saw a 56% click-through and 84% action rates for coverage-related communications.

“We’ve noticed when you spend a few minutes to talk a little bit about the PA process or what an appeal means, and any extra kind of intel and information that you can provide around those things is deemed to drive kind of higher engagement,” he said. Patients value clear information about complex insurance terminology and processes.

“What we try to do with all of our messages is provide the patient with pharmacy contact information,” Cornacchia said. “We’re essentially bridging that gap between coverage and access.”

She added that when patients are provided with a click to call pharmacy button in their digital communications, 24% of patients actively use this feature.

Access

The access phase represents the transition where patients move from coverage approval to receiving their first medication fill. This transition presents significant challenges from both data management and patient engagement perspectives, according to Dunford. As patients move from hub services to outside pharmacy networks, their journey status becomes difficult to track, making it hard to maintain consistent communication and support.

Despite these challenges, Dunford stressed that “adding in all kinds of different action buttons to help the patient engage strictly via text is really vital.” Patient-controlled scheduling options increased contact success by 45% while reducing case management workload by approximately two hours, he pointed out.

Adherence

Time-contextual communications around therapy events prove highly effective, for example, providing pre-infusion preparation tips, day-of logistics, and post-treatment expectations, according to Dunford,

“It’s a lot about empathy and context,” he said. “Consider changing repetitive refill reminders to something like, ‘Congratulations! You’ve been on therapy for 30 days. This is potentially the impact you may be feeling at this point. How are you doing? Do you need extra support?’”

While engagement naturally decreases slightly as patients become more comfortable with their treatment regimen — about 10%-15% — Dunford noted that programs that maintain empathy and contextual relevance continue to show strong results, with patient-reported outcomes achieving 50%-60% engagement when implemented thoughtfully.

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