Earning the attention of Health Care Professionals is hard. They’re super busy and used to doing things a certain way. But when the stakes are so high, a way through has to be found.

A regular ‘information pack’ would be ignored, so we did something very different.

Using data research and design, we created a globally recognisable map to instantly communicate the important interrelationships of four seemingly independent health conditions, to help HCPs save lives.

Visualising the data like this was ground-breaking in the HCPs B2B field and earned AstraZeneca attention with their specific direct audience in a big way.

Good doctors accurately diagnose patients every day. To do this, they look for familiar signs, which lead to analysis and then treatment. The problem is, one disease is often connected to another, meaning crucial symptoms can be masked or overlooked, with devastating consequences. Understanding how one disease could lead to another can save lives.

Up to 130 million people worldwide suffer from devastating cardiovascular, renal and metabolic (CVRM) diseases. The treatment journey for CVRM patients can be incredibly complicated and patients will likely share many medical experiences and risk factors.

AstraZeneca asked us to

- Show Healthcare Professionals how some of the biggest diseases interconnect

- Be known as the partner to HCPs for their high ambitions for tackling diseases in the CVRM space.

How could AstraZeneca help their doctors see the whole landscape and pre-empt all the possible turns?

In order to help doctors see the whole landscape we took inspiration from something labelled ‘too radical’ when introduced, but has since been adopted worldwide, helping people navigate new, interconnected landscapes since 1933 – Harry Beck’s original tube map.

Patient Pathways is the world’s first visualised disease map to show the connections between 4 separate diseases.

Thinking about disease paths as actual journeys enabled us to show exactly how everything was connected, in a way that everybody could understand.

The sharable resource can be translated into any language and understood across cultures and it was launched with patient films, connecting doctors emotionally with the people behind the diseases, revolutionising AstraZeneca’s information sharing.

Understanding how diseases intersect can save lives. But the data involved in understanding how every disease can intersect with every disease at every given moment is too dense and complicated to be absorbed from text.

CVRM patient journeys are interconnected, paths running parallel, and often crossing.

The target audience of this campaign is healthcare professionals.

Recognising the hard-to-reach audience, we also created emotionally compelling 'patient' films to accompany the launch of the map - giving HCPs a sense of the people behind the diseases and encouraging them to engage with the tool.

The strategy was realised via a full communications campaign centring around the patient pathway map and and videos.

We also targeted HCPs online and at medical congresses, and offline industry events.

Plotting the map required enormous collaboration. Every stage of progression was plotted, and the lines accurately connected. AstraZeneca medical leads, corporate affairs and global market access teams worked tirelessly with art directors, designers, copywriters and medical writers to create the visual. The process was incredibly involved, taking two months to achieve.

No one had attempted this before, and diseases can take more than one course. But in the end, a thorough, well-grounded and medically accurate map that sheds light on CVRM diseases (with a modern and appealing aesthetic) took shape.

Using verbatim quotes from real patients, the videos captured the emotional turmoil each patient is thrown into by a CVRM diagnosis.

A full communications campaign was then launched, centring around the maps and videos. This included:

- Targeted digital promotion during key medical congresses

- media events

- comms-packs deployed to regional markets

- a full social media editorial calendar

The Patient Pathways map has revolutionised AstraZeneca’s information sharing.

• 89% of HCPs want to use the map in their practice

• 59% now feel more positive about AstraZeneca

• The patient films achieved 1M video views in just three months

• The campaign had a 41% view rate on LinkedIn

• Celia Taiueb Walch, Head of Global Corporate Affairs, AstraZeneca said of the campaign: ‘What started as an HCP campaign became so much more, this has been a game changer’

Quotes:

• “The patient will understand the intricacy and the complexity of their disease processes”

• “It will be very helpful for early preventive measures and timely intervention. Also will help in timely decisions regarding providing palliative care promptly.”

• “This may also encourage patients to take preventive measures to mitigate the modifiable risk factors”

We had to follow very close legal guidelines on how we could portray the patient and adapt based on channel distribution, but also what stops were selected on the map.

The approval process, comprising of several rounds of legal feedback + social media regulations added 9 months to the campaign.

HCPs treat patients for the disease they present, but without good awareness of how symptoms overlap it's easy for crucial signs of other diseases to be overlocked, sometimes with devastating consequences.

The workable map enables HCPs to check symptoms and interactions at a glance, improving management and outcomes.