BL: While many health systems are working towards a vision of delivering “continuity of care” through the standardisation of data and health record exchange, we believe it’s critical to break down common barriers and support continuity of care across the entire continuum.

First, it’s about partnerships to ensure continuity of care. This starts with collaboration between HCPs and insurance providers, especially true in the US, where the right partner can help navigate common delays in therapy.

When you’re a patient, you want to get your treatment as quickly as possible, but how can you ensure your insurance benefits are confirmed quickly? Is there a single point of contact to coordinate things like in-home therapy, especially for complex conditions? And for non-complex therapies like migraines, for example, could a more direct-to-patient model be more effective to help patients? In this model, a company can help a pharma brand handle everything from patient onboarding to dispensing and adherence, which makes everyone's lives better.

Next, it’s about ensuring services are integrated when provided. Yes, wellness apps are great, but patients do best when they have an assigned care team, which can include nurses, pharmacists, and patient services experts who understand the disease's state and have built programmes around it. Teams must live the patient-first mindset, and programmes should be built around this concept.

When done correctly, the results produce less confusion, less therapy abandonment, greater adherence, and overall patient satisfaction. That’s how we’ve built our programmes, and we average over 96% patient-satisfaction. It works, and that’s what continuity of care is all about.

DH: What I’ll add to that is how can we best provide this continuity of care – and it’s tied to the power of data. In an ideal world, data would be consolidated for the patient in one place with data interoperability and care coordination across apps, telehealth, and clinics. Patients expect their health records, prescriptions, and treatment plans to follow them across platforms without repeating history or tests.

We’re not quite there yet from a data integration standpoint on a national or international level, but progress continues every day.

DH: I’ll cover three. The first myth we hear is that “patients want more apps.” That’s not the case. The reality is they want fewer individual applications and instead prefer truly integrated tools that fit into their daily lives. This is where building systems that can be connected to make their lives easier is so important.

A second myth we hear is about how digital tools measure patient engagement, and this is measured by downloads. Again, it's not true. True engagement isn’t about 100 or 1,000 downloads per day. Rather, it’s about sustained usage of the application, which triggers behaviour changes for patients. And when this is successful, it leads to improved outcomes.

Finally, a third common myth we hear is “digital is only for younger patients.” While one may think that’s the case, the reality is that older populations are increasingly adopting telehealth and remote monitoring. This isn’t the case for all conditions and there are some geographic areas where this may be more common. For example, some urban communities may have an older patient population that is used to using technology in their day-to-day life more frequently than someone in rural areas.

But much like how 20 years ago a cell phone wasn’t that common, today nearly everyone has one. Digital tools in healthcare are progressing on the same course, if not faster.

BL: Direct-to-patient is all about making care faster and better for patients, powered by technology and data. It has evolved from marketing and education, the traditional "direct-to-consumer" approach, to care delivery. Today, it’s more of a service model, not just a promotional channel.

We believe direct-to-patient is supercharged, making marketing and education aspects more affordable and effective while combining it with a comprehensive care delivery arm. At EVERSANA we call this EVERSANA DIRECT, and it includes marketing to diagnosis, prescription fulfilment, pull-through adherence, and digital communication to the patient. But it’s more than this, too. It is also about solving the right pathway at the right time within a complex drug payment system that exists today to ensure the patient is presented with the best and most affordable option.

When built the right way and fuelled by AI and digital channels such as telemedicine, electronic benefits verification, billing, and prescription fulfilment with specialty pharmacy distribution, sales teams, hub support, and payer capabilities, manufacturers can provide a fully integrated, tech-enabled approach to support patients across the digital care and streamline access – enhancing speed, adherence, cost transparency, and outcomes.

DH: Direct-to-patient models can be very effective for patients with rare diseases or chronic conditions, especially for direct-to-disease education. In a recent study, 81% of patients said pharma should provide resources to help them get the care and medicines they need. And when a patient has a rare condition, finding answers is even more challenging.

A well-developed platform integrates into private networks, communities, or health systems to provide disease-specific non-promotional communication and compliant educational-only communication.

When done right, this creates patient empowerment where advocacy arises, stronger opportunities for adherence through peer support come to life and, ultimately, patients may experience happier lives with the added support.

BL: As we look into the future, the future of pharma is bright for patient outcomes if we continue to embrace direct-to-patient and direct-to-disease models. What’s it look like?

First, we see a day where there will be integrated ecosystems across healthcare providers, pharmacy, pharma, payers, and patients, breaking down silos, sharing data (in a safe way), and ultimately putting patients’ needs first.

Second, direct offers more personalised pathways to care, driven by AI recommendations for individual therapies and lifestyles.

And thirdly, in five years, I think we may see more home care treatment options where this is the care hub – from diagnostics to drug delivery to virtual home care visits; more will be done at home than ever before driven by technology.

DH: There’s so much to be excited about as we move the industry forward. We have the opportunity to really create better access to drugs, reduce costs to patients, and make a difference in their lives. That’s a huge reason many of us are in healthcare to begin with, to make a difference.

Will it be easy? No, and we must constantly be aware of data privacy and cybersecurity concerns that could impact digital health solutions. Plus, we must ensure that as we get more digital, we can scale effectively, and not leave patients behind.

That said, our future is bright, and I believe our work as an industry will make a difference.

BL: To me, it’s about new ways of helping patients, pharma industry, and improving payer access. For years, we’ve never been able to figure out a way to do all three, and we’re almost there. That’s what excites me. How often can you truly play a role in transforming the care model?

Worries? Not doing it fast enough to help a patient in need either access a medication or afford it. There are still lots of hurdles out there – costs, political hurdles, and more.

But in 2025, we’re in a better position than ever to transform the way care is delivered. That’s special.