Situation:

-In the treatment of lupus, patients may have a difficult time talking to their doctors.

-GSK survey shows that 52% of patients report that they minimize their symptoms when talking to physicians.

-72% of physicians are unaware that this is happening.

Objectives:

-Bring greater attention to the challenges inherent within patient/physician dialogue.

-Feature 3 hypothetical Lupus patient personas developed through GSK research: The Warrior, The Actor, and The Overwhelmed.

-Dig deeper into the motivations behind “why” patients hold back, and what they need in their rheumatologists to feel comfortable expressing themselves.

Brief:

-At ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, invite Healthcare Professionals (HCPs) into the GSK exhibit with an aspirational call to action.

-Drive attendee discussions with nurse educators around challenges they experience in connecting with patients.

-Provide HCPs with tools and resources to support robust dialogue, and ask for their commitment to more active listening during patient conversations.

Referencing the advice, “walk a mile in someone else's shoes” as a way to understand someone’s experiences and challenges, we highlighted the challenges inherent within the Lupus patient/physician dialogue by inviting HPCs to “Walk a While in Their Shoes.”

The creative…

-Personalized the disease - each of the three hypothetical patient personas by a specific shoe that embodied each patient-type:

--A hiking boot for The Warrior

--High heel shoes for The Actor

--A bedroom slipper for The Overwhelmed

-Drove HCP participation by spinning a “Wheel of Lupus” that identified the persona the HCP would learn about (that also served to highlight the random nature of the disease symptoms).

-Established commitment and empathy with first person stories and visual wall of shoes.

-In a regulated world of no gift-giving, GSK rewarded physicians with educational material and by donating the shoes to charity at the end of the show.

Lupus affects over five million people worldwide but is radically under-diagnosed. One cause: ineffective patient-doctor dialogs; patients minimize symptoms and doctors don’t recognize that behavior.

The “Walk a While in Their Shoes” Campaign focused on better diagnosis through insights of three patient personas.

-The Warrior – “Every day is a battle. And I need to win.”

-The Actor – “My Lupus symptoms are seriously affecting me. But you’ll never know.”

-The Overwhelmed – “Lupus has beaten me down. It’s too much for me to handle.”

The strategy was to engage HCPs with patient personas—physically, intellectually and emotionally—using an aspirational call to action, an engaging display, concise content that resonated, and an opportunity to discuss specific patient challenges with our nurse educators. We also provided tools and resources to support robust dialogue, as well as ask for their commitment to listening more to their patients once back in the office.

GSK stood apart from its competitors with experiential elements that made its message memorable and relevant.

EXHIBIT

-Three persona areas defined by kiosk and video screen.

-A central head-turning, sculptural element used actual shoes to fill in the oversized “SHOES” graphic.

-Carpet footprints reinforced the overall theme.

EXPERIENCE

-HCPs spun a clicking carnival wheel to select a shoe type that corresponded with a persona.

-Proceeding to a kiosk, they placed the shoe on an activation sensor to trigger a “patient perspectives” program on the video screen.

-A first-person narrative immersed attendees in the lupus patient’s daily life.

-Nurse Educators discussed clinical experiences with physicians and gave them a resource-loaded thumb drive as a takeaway.

-Attendees finished by placing their patient shoe on the sculptural wall.

-As the wall filled, SHOES became increasingly prominent.

-Physicians appreciated that all shoes were donated to charity

The experience prompted attendees to think about the patient dialog in a new way, and provided tools and resources to promote better engagement in the future.

• There were 210 interactions over the course of 3 days.

• Survey results revealed:

o 71.3% of practicing physicians agreed that a patient’s personality affects his/her treatment approach for them.

o physicians recognized their patients within the hypothetical personas

o physicians hadn’t always thought about personality affecting their treatment plans.

• Anecdotally, several shared on that floor that they had never considered the question before and GSK observed strong and tearful emotional reaction to the personas.

• Approximately 100 pairs of shoes were donated to Good Will and Share Your Soles.