While medical professionals may crave clinical accuracy in their healthcare materials, when engaging with people across their treatment journey, the words, tone, format, and delivery you choose impact whether the reader connects with the content. Shifting our view of individuals from “patient” to “person” allows communications experts to adapt materials so that people of all levels of medical knowledge and readiness can easily understand them.

“Your average person may not have that special medical knowledge as a starting point,” explains Rowan-Green. “Being diagnosed with a life-changing condition is scary enough without having to read through a list of all these different terms that you’ve never heard of before. We should be meeting people where they’re at and giving them the materials they need, so that they can understand things.”

Some may prefer detailed written materials they can study at their own pace, while others might benefit from visual guides or interactive tools. Lynette Arnell, operational manager at pharmaphorum, experienced this firsthand after she received her cancer diagnosis. “There’s still stuff I haven’t read,” she says. “It took me a long while before I felt I could even start to look at anything. I couldn’t even concentrate on watching half-hour episodes of Coronation Street, let alone wading through a 30-page book on my diagnosis. It was too much.”

As Arnell’s experience illustrates, friends and family members move at different paces when processing information about her diagnosis. While she felt overwhelmed and isolated following the news, her husband immersed himself in research, “went through everything and read everything,” she laughs.

Communicating with children at different life stages requires particular sensitivity. Rowan-Green explains: “Obviously, when you think about children versus an adult, their understanding of how the body works is very different. It’s about making sure you’re at their level and that it’s in a format that they want to engage with as well. Try to get a five-year-old to sit down and look at a really text-heavy leaflet. That’s not going to happen.”

“The charity Maggie’s and my daughter’s primary school were very supportive and gave me books that my daughter could read,” Arnell shares. “But, in the end, I decided not to use them; instead, I used my own words. At the end of the day, every patient’s journey is different, and every child is unique.” However, she found a significant gap in traditional support materials for young adults: “For my son, as a young adult, I didn’t find there was any support. But, he is still my child; I’m still his mother, and at 23, I think he was still too young to have to face this news.”

Making information accessible also means creating practical tools that empower patients in real-world situations. Rowan-Green describes how checklists can transform medical appointments: “Making sure you leave with that information that you needed without having to go to Dr Google is really important.” Low's team has put this into practice: “We’ve actually made resources like a doctor discussion guide, which has all the questions you should be asking, a spot to fill in the information.”

The format and delivery of information must be equally thoughtful. Low emphasises the range of possibilities: “There can be print materials, infographics, pamphlets, one-pagers, and then all the different digital formats.” She notes the important distinction between “disease state education... materials that are more unbranded and more just education on what this disease is, how it works, and then materials that are more specifically focused on a treatment or a brand.”

The development of these resources increasingly relies on direct patient input. “Obviously, you want to speak to the people who matter in this,” says Low, describing how they gather feedback at congresses and through advocacy groups.