Nagore Fernandez and Nareda Mills are blazing a trail in personalised patient support programmes with their work at Ashfield.

As Head of Patient Solutions in Europe and President of Patient Solutions in the US, the pair understand only too well how important it is for medication to be taken at the right time and at the right dose. Yet thousands of patients around the globe struggle to follow their medication regimes. We joined the two Trailblazers in Madrid as they discussed a new solution that will transform how Ashfield delivers its patient support programmes and help to minimise non-adherence.

Nareda: As a nurse by training, this is such an exciting project for me. Healthcare professionals are under massive time constraints, and can’t spend as long as they would like educating patients about their health and medications. I love that we can help to bridge the gap with our solution.

Nagore: Besides, we both know that patients don’t always ask the questions they have in mind to their physician, out of fear that they may be wasting their time.

Nareda: Absolutely! And if they can’t get those questions answered, then there’s a risk they won’t continue to take their medication. This can have huge implications on the overall success. of their treatment

Nagore: That’s a really good point. Did you know that lack of adherence by patients costs the life sciences industry more than $500 billion a year? That’s a lot of money that could be directed to developing new therapies. With the new solution, our clinical educators will be able to deliver more personalised support to patients, which will make it easier for them to adjust to their new health routine.

Nareda: Adapting to change is never easy – whether it’s in our personal or professional lives. I feel we’ve had to really be open to change to make this project a success.

Nagore: We’ve had to be open to learning too. I’ve learnt so much about your role, I feel we could trade places now!

Nareda: I think it’s really important to be able to see things from another person’s perspective. That’s why I was so keen to ensure we had a feedback feature built into the solution. Our clinical educators are going to be able to capture a lot of valuable information from patients that we can now share with prescribers to improve the dialogue that they have with their patients, and ultimately improve healthcare outcomes.

Nagore: I think feedback from our clinical educators on the solution is going to be key for us too. With Salesforce Health Cloud, there are so many new features that we could add; we need to make sure we keep the solution relevant.

Nareda: I still can’t quite believe that we’ve built and delivered a global solution for 1,000 clinical educators so quickly. Teamwork has been paramount – Salesforce was great at helping us overcome what we thought were roadblocks.

Nagore: It did seem like a big undertaking at times, but I think breaking it up into steps helped to keep us on course. Now that we have a blueprint, it will be much easier to expand both the solution’s functionality and its use across the business globally.

Nareda: I think we’ve already included some great functionality. If I was working in the field as a clinical educator, I would love the fact that I can now get patient permission forms completed digitally instead of having to carry around lots of paper records and worry about keeping them secure.

Nagore: The reporting is also pretty cool! It will enable us and our pharmaceutical clients to see which support patient programmes are the most effective. Better education and greater adherence to medication regimes will make a real difference to people’s lives.

By empowering its clinical educators, Ashfield will be able to deliver more personalised support to thousands of patients. This will not only help to improve adherence to prescribed medication routines but also have a positive impact on health outcomes.

Built on Health Cloud, Salesforce Shield, and Lightning, Ashfield's new solution will support its work with the world’s top 20 pharmaceutical companies. Its patient support programmes span a range of conditions and diseases.

You can learn more about how Ashfield is using technology to transform health outcomes here.