By Carolyn Stephenson and Kathy Moriarty
In the realm of rare diseases, the role of specialists is crucial but fraught with challenges, particularly when it comes to making treatment decisions. The complexities and uncertainties inherent in managing rare diseases can place significant emotional and cognitive burdens on these healthcare professionals. To support and motivate rare disease specialists in their critical work, it is essential to understand their unique challenges and provide tailored communication strategies.
Prompting Action
By looking to behavioral science and identifying the decision-making style of this population, we are able to inspire action. Data from our Mindset Engine tells us that rare disease specialists are maximizers in both their goals and their strategies, meaning that they want the best outcomes for their patients, but are skeptical. Even when presented with “the best” option, they frequently second-guess themselves and can get stuck in an analysis paralysis.
Luckily, we’re able to employ specific communications techniques that help rare disease specialists overcome any decision paralysis
Peer Validation and Consensus: Maximizers highly value the opinions and practices of their peers. Ensuring that they see peer endorsement and consensus can significantly influence their decision-making. We would facilitate peer discussions, case studies, and panels where leading specialists share their positive experiences and outcomes with the treatment.
Robust Evidence and Continuous Updates: To maintain a maximizer’s confidence in the treatment, providing continuous and detailed evidence of the treatment's effectiveness, including recent studies, real-world data, and long-term outcomes, is crucial. So, we would send regular updates with the latest research findings, patient outcome data, and success stories.
Minimize the Fear of Regret: Maximizers can get paralyzed by their fear of making the wrong decision, making it our job to provide reassurance about the treatment. Our communications would emphasize the treatment’s safety profile, regulatory approvals, and endorsements from medical associations. We would also highlight stories of physicians who initially hesitated but later saw excellent results.
Tackling Uncertainty
Even as we employ tactics meant to inspire action in rare disease specialists, uncertainty is an everyday reality. Put simply, uncertainty is the state of not knowing what will happen or what action to take. This feeling can place significant emotional and cognitive burden on HCPs, making it even harder for them to make decisions.
But, as with so many aspects of human behavior, people experience uncertainty differently. We need to know the particular sources of uncertainty for rare disease specialists in order to create effective communications. Data from our Mindset Engine tells us that rare disease specialists are highly concerned about both vague or incomplete information, and the difficulty to predict future outcomes.
Armed with this knowledge, we would look to our proprietary predictive insights to foster certainty in rare disease specialists.
Our Predictive Storytelling method uses advanced analytics to simplify and streamline the interpretation of complex data sets providing a clear vision. Using proprietary data inputs, we can develop motivationally versioned messaging that maps mindset to message to move rare disease specialists to action. For rare disease specialists, we could use our predictive insights to craft communication that eases their uncertainty and ultimately continues to fuel motivation to prompt action This capability de-risks decision-making, allowing our clients to have a higher degree of confidence.
Addressing the uncertainties and decision-making challenges faced by rare disease specialists requires a nuanced and strategic approach. We can foster certainty through predictive insights, and by leveraging behavioral insights and targeted communications strategies.
Supporting Healthcare Professionals Through Behavioral Insights
Motivation is fleeting, something we know all too well in the communications space. By examining the different dimensions of behavior—intention, motivation, influence, and action—we’re able to provide a holistic understanding of how to better support vital healthcare professionals.
Ultimately, a deeper understanding of these behavioral dimensions empowers us to create more effective communication and support systems, ensuring healthcare professionals can continue their critical work with renewed confidence and clarity.
