Everyone at Heart: AHA on Inclusive Marketing Strategy

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:00:10] Hello everyone, I am Doctor Tracy Norfleet, the American Heart Association’s commitment to proactive and equitable engagement across patient health journeys and diverse community settings is remarkable. Everyone here has seen their messaging and likely related to it, but whether you are here with us today or in Saint Louis, where I’m from, going about your day, the AHA’s national scope has likely touched down in a personal and nuanced way. That’s because of their commitment. Because everyone everywhere deserves to live longer, healthier lives. Today we’re going to explore how the strategizes the consumer care journey. So let’s go on this journey together through the health equity lens of pure curiosity and inquiry with Kelley and Madeline. To start us off, Kelly, how does the AHA expansively redefine who is on the consumer care journey and why is starting with a broader, more inclusive definition so vital for effectively reaching people?

Kelly Cunha Pokorny [00:01:36] Thank you so much. So really what we think about is who’s who’s having that conversation? And we’ve heard a lot about this already this morning that we’re thinking about the patient, the caregiver and the health care provider. But what you’ve also heard already today is that there’s more to that team than meets the eye. For that patient, they’ve already connected with friends and family. They’ve done research online and social media groups to know what questions to ask, and they’ve likely brought a caregiver with them. But [00:02:13]it doesn’t just stop at the patient and caregiver and their support team, but it’s also that health care provider support team, the health care provider is not alone, right. And they have the nurses. They have the texts that are coming in. So there’s that clinical care team. But then there’s also that support team as well. And so thinking about the social workers, if you’re in a hospital system you have a patient experience team. And so how can we really inform that all in totality someone that might be impacting that care journey. [35.1s] That’s a lot of people to inform. And we have to do it in the right way. And so the way that we think about audience segmentation is really thinking about audience mindset. And so I’ll go through kind of what those four spheres look like. The first sphere is really looking at that general health consumer. And at this point they’re just listening. They they understand perhaps what American Heart Association does, where how we focus on cardiovascular disease and stroke. They want to know how perhaps to eat right or exercise better or sleep better. But then you start to get into that conscious health consumer. We’re starting to talk about your blood work. We’re starting to monitor your cholesterol. It’s not time for medication yet, but we want to think about what is happening with your cholesterol. And what does that look like from a family history perspective. So now we’re really starting to engage in a conversation as a patient and a caregiver and a professional. And then you’re moving into that preventive health. Now we’re starting to see that high LDL cholesterol. We’re starting to see perhaps diabetes or prediabetes. We’re starting to think about what other risk factors are could be attributed to that patient, that caregiver, that family history. And then we’re going into the diagnosis space. Now we’re having a much more complex conversation. Right. And this is when those seven minutes or so critical that you talked about earlier from an appointment time perspective. So how can we support that diagnosis conversation or that post diagnosis conversation as we are trying to survey the landscape of side effects or potential side effects or medication adherence or medication changes. And so really [00:04:38]it’s it’s not only who they are and who they’re with, but what are they thinking. And then what are their beliefs. How do we match those beliefs with the right message? [9.7s

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:04:49] Yes. Madeline defining who is on the journey is one layer. Can you explain what barriers people might experience as part of their journeys, or where those journeys are located that influence receptivity to messaging? How does the AHA rethink journeys to address those barriers?

Madeleine Konig [00:05:13] Sure. So building on what Kelly walked you through in terms of the audiences, we at the American Heart Association think about the patient care journey, or the patient health journey. And for us, the term patient is is a broad, encompassing term because we handle all those individuals with family history who may have developed a risk factor or who have developed a cardiovascular condition of some sort and really strive that for those individuals to survive and thrive. And so [00:05:40]it’s important for us to think about where on that health journey we’re interfacing with those individuals. [3.7s] It could be their just general awareness. The individual hasn’t developed a condition but may have an underlying family history. They could have develop signs and symptoms. And so we’re educating them around knowing what those signs and symptoms are. They may have actually developed a diagnosis. And so now they’re determining what their treatment or their lifestyle changes need to be, or they have to they have started treatment. And so they are thinking through what the side effects, the prognosis. And then like we heard before, we have individuals, because we also cover and educate the stroke population, those individuals who are trying to engage in ongoing recovery and management. And [00:06:26]so we look across those varied journeys with those audiences that Kelly mentioned in mind. And then we lay over other factors. Health stage. Demographic, socioeconomic, cultural background, geography because those nuance, the journey. But where we spend the majority of our time is really thinking through the points of friction along that journey. [22.5s] And we know, we had a lot of discussion this morning around lived experience and incorporating lived experience. And so [00:06:57]we engage patient advisory groups, science advisory groups, clinical health care professional advisory groups to really understand the lived experience. And we know that several barriers are central. Several points of friction come up along the way. For example, we know that individuals often don’t feel seen and heard in the health care environment, whether that’s from their health care professional understanding their lived experience, or in the medical literature, the health information. They don’t see their own lived experience and background reflected. [28.5s] We also know that individuals face many challenges. Many of these, referenced this morning around navigational challenges. So those intersecting systems to their clinical care, transportation, child care, employment, and, and how that impacts their ability to seek and receive, high quality care. And so, it’s important that we focus on these barriers and work to eliminate them. But I think [00:07:53]what is particularly important about those barriers is that they limit and impact individual individuals receptivity to receiving information. And so, we address those by recognizing the trust relationships that exist. We also heard about this this morning where we think about for some, a trust relationship is that health care professional. We think about the more macro or traditional health care environments for meeting people. Those are your inpatient and outpatient facilities, community health centers. We do a lot of work in the community health center space and in retail and pharmacy. Like we heard this morning, for many, the pharmacist is that trusted source of information. But we also think about the micro environments because for some and we know that there is also a decent level of mistrust, particularly by some populations in their health in the health care system. So we think about the micro environments that these kind of connectors, where someone is with a trusted source of information that could be a caregiver, a care partner, as we heard referenced this morning, or a loved one, someone from their faith community. [65.7s] And so it’s in these points of connection, these micro environments, the parking lot, after they’ve received a diagnosis, the cafeteria of the hospital, while they’re waiting for the results of a test or even larger kind of the point or the area of care, the transportation mechanisms in, in between health care environments. And so, basically a long way to say that we layer many, many different factors over one another to to build on the audience, the barriers and those trust relationships to determine how to make sure that folks are receptive to the care and to the information that we can provide them

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:09:34] I think that’s very important to have information in more than one place, so that patients in their family and support can make sure that they are understanding what their needs are. Kelly, we have explored the who and where facets that personalized journeys. As a practitioner, I understand how important those contexts are to connecting people to care. But do you also take into account how unique situations such as preventative, acute, or chronic influence what patients and caregivers may need from the during critical moments along that timeline?

Kelly Cunha Pokorny [00:10:17] Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, it kind of goes back to that mindset that when you’re having a preventative conversation versus an acute conversation, that’s also what you heard this morning, right? [00:10:28]We’re putting a lot of confidence in our acute care teams to remember every single facet of information. [6.2s] When you’re having a preventative conversation, that’s a much more casual conversation. I’m so glad you came in for your annual visit. This is why it’s so important. What can let’s think about a prevention plan you can work on until I see you next year, right? As things start to progress, then that conversation progresses as well. And so it’s really important to think about the time and the place and the mindset that, again, everyone in that room is in because we have to inform the professional to inform the patient and the caregiver. That’s going to be that support for that patient. And really make sure that that message is going to matter at that time. And it’s going to it’s going to be digestible in that moment.

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:11:22] Absolutely. You definitely need to meet the patient where they where they are. You can’t come in with an agenda. You you need to work on the agenda of the patient. Kelly, given the barriers to inclusive engagement, what principles guide your support to accessible, resonant message messaging? Are there specific channels or messaging formats that work? When considering all the context and recognizing the need is one thing. But how can market marketers know that they are successfully reaching people?

Kelly Cunha Pokorny [00:11:58] That’s right. What I have up on the screen right now is some MRI Simmons data that we use to develop our personas. And so really behind every message is that audience. And we have to think about that audience first. So [00:12:14]it’s very important to know exactly who that audience is and what is going to resonate with them before you even craft the message. [7.4s] And the reason for this is, for instance, we did a recent campaign for LDL high cholesterol, and we had a very diverse audience mix that we were reaching nationally. So we had to test a few theories in terms of what was going to resonate with who we built as our persona mix. We had the statistical information. So every 40s somebody can suffer from a heart attack or stroke. I don’t know how many people in this room knew that. It’s every 40s that is real. That is alarming and it’s dumping and no matter your health literacy, no matter where you are in the care journey, this matters. And then you’ll see that we we also do that personalized help them see themselves. Perhaps they didn’tidentify like, ‘I don’t have high cholesterol. I go to boot camp, I eat vegan, I get nine hours of sleep at night. I feel fantastic.’ Well, LDL high cholesterol is not something that you just get because of lifestyle. It’s actually a health risk. And so what we found, between these two, is even though we had this diverse population mix only one specific segment related to the boot camp lady. And then the other segment actually related, but majority of segments, related to the statistic and they acted on it. Our CTA is to talk to a health care professional. The other example that we have to, from an aFib perspective, is also, you heard a little bit about it this morning, you’ll notice here again, we personalized help you see yourself, help you recognize moments in which if you were diagnosed with AFib, you would need to balance those magical moments with that health complexity. And what you’ll see here is that we took the health literacy route of really defining what it is. Right? And so it could be as simple as a statistic or a definition. And that’s it. That’s all they need. Sometimes. What you’ll also notice about this is you heard a little bit this morning about how do we inform the patients and the clinicians. Well, [00:14:43]why not make the clinician part of the patient conversation and make the patient part of the clinician conversation? Why can’t we do that? We should do that. It’s a care team scenario. The more that we can visualize that, the more that it’s going to be that seamless interaction of messaging. [19.0s]

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:15:03] Yes. And I love how you have racing heartbeat. Right. Because everyone doesn’t know what AFib is. So speaking to the patient, the client so they can understand what we’re talking about. Putting all of what we’ve discussed together. Can you synthesize how we can better put all of this into action?

Madeleine Konig [00:15:30] Sure. Absolutely. You know, to use a phrase that was used earlier and you just used a moment ago, Tracy, essentially our golden rules for for engaging patients in this way is really to meet them where they are. It’s a guiding value of the American Heart Association, and it very much encompasses all that we do. And so first, it’s to actively listen and empathize. We talked a lot about the patient insights that we use to generate an informed understanding of the lived experience. Understanding what their values and needs are from the information and messaging that we create and leverage populations of trust, understand that this is different for different individuals and use those strategically and deliberately. And [00:16:13]we also need to create value based on their need not our needs as an organization. Inserting into their lives and their lifestyle, not expecting them to come to us. And so really understanding how to do that in an empathetic way [14.8s] and talking again about how Kelly, between the health care provider and the patient, we really build those perspectives into all that we do. [00:16:37]Not only does the patient want to see him or herself in the information and in the system, but so does the health care professional. And so really making sure that what we’re presenting feels relevant and feels true and authentic. [13.1s] And then lastly, questioning, staying curious and questioning in constantly throughout all that we do, we generate insights on a regular basis, continually on trying to understand, those points of friction, those barriers for patients and working that into, our processes in a way that is, is straightforward. And, that a straightforward.

Dr. Tracy Norfleet [00:17:17] Straightforward is definitely what we need. Kelly and Madeline, thank you so much for this engaging discussion about how the does an outstanding job in attending to the needs of varied audiences in a unique and powerful way. We appreciate you.