How a patient’s story helped a pharma brand to engage clinical leaders, charities, patient groups and policymakers.

Diagnosed with heart failure and given months to live, Sunil’s journey defied prognosis and expectations and helped highlight the need for new perspectives and care pathways. In Fighting Failure, his lived experience was captured and developed into a content series for Novartis that helped reshape perceptions of heart failure - from clinical fatalism to proactive engagement and care redesign.

Fighting Failure helped Novartis bring together British Society for Heart Failure, The Department of Health and Social Care, The British Cardiovascular Society, The British Association for Cardiac Prevention and Rehabilitation, Cardiomyopathy UK, Pumping Marvellous as well as leading NHS doctors and nurses and the UK Secretary of State for Health. 

From content for HCP education, to videos played to policymakers in Parliament, shared by charities and patient groups and a documentary on Prime Video, the content successfully engaged with audiences and key stakeholders before production was even completed – providing a new and groundbreaking framework for authentic content creation.

FIXING US collects extensive footage, enabling what we capture to become more authentic and more useful for our clients. We offer Authentic Intelligence™ to help clients capture useful qualitative information to support their communications, research and insights-generation. Here’s one example question where Fixing Dad helps us to learn more about the patient-HCP relationship: 

Q) What were the types of support that Sunil highlighted as the most helpful for him and his family following his diagnosis?

A) Based on the information provided, we can identify some of the types of support that were most helpful for Sunil and his family following his heart failure diagnosis. Let's summarize the key points:

1. Specialist Care: This data highlights that getting to a specialist made the biggest difference. The caregiver mentions, "When we did get to the specialist, it made the biggest difference, Sunil started to get better. He got hope."

2. Holistic Approach: It is mentioned that "He had a holistic approach to everything that meant the world to all of us." This suggests that comprehensive care addressing various aspects of Sunil's condition was particularly helpful.

3. Hope and Emotional Support: The specialist care provided hope, which was crucial for Sunil's improvement. This emotional support seems to have been very important for both Sunil and his family.

4. Personalized Care: The importance of personalized care is emphasized, with his caregiver stating, "Sunil has heart failure. His heart failure is completely different to somebody else's heart failure." This suggests that tailored treatment and support for Sunil's specific condition was beneficial.

5. Information and Education: The caregiver needed to "get more information about how to improve things without extreme medical intervention." This indicates that access to information and education about managing heart failure was an important form of support.

6. Family Support: The involvement of Sunil's family, particularly his wife and child, seems to have been a crucial form of support throughout his journey.

7. Advocacy and Empowerment: Data suggests that Sunil was involved in advocacy for others with heart failure, which might have served a form of support for him as well. His caregiver mentions, "Sunil is doing this for all because he understands the debilitating effect of heart failure."

In conclusion, the most helpful types of support for Sunil and his family appear to have been specialized medical care, a holistic and personalized approach to treatment, emotional support and hope provided by healthcare professionals, access to information about managing his condition, strong family support, and the opportunity to advocate for others in similar situations. These various forms of support seem to have contributed significantly to Sunil's improvement and ability to cope with his heart failure diagnosis.