Jasmine Greenamyer
Can you share an initiative that has been particularly impactful for patient communities?
When I think of an initiative with the most impact, I think about the advocacy team’s work around hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).
In 2021, BMS was a sponsor of the Global Heart Hub’s cardiomyopathy patient council with the goal of creating a global alliance to increase awareness and understanding of cardiomyopathies. The council started with three patient organizations and grew to 30 different organizations.
Fast forward – the program is now available in 10 languages, in 12 different countries. So, you can see the high level of need was there and these resource materials have literally changed patient lives while helping the patient communicate better about their condition.
How do you know what you’re doing is working within patient communities?
We’re looking to see if we’ve increased education and patient empowerment, if we’ve increased understanding of the latest science and research, and one of the questions we ask ourselves long-term is, did we help increase access to treatment for our patients? Our success is interdependent with many other parts of the business.
We also invest every two years in a reputational qualitative research study where we get feedback from our advocacy groups. We want their perception of how BMS patient advocacy is doing, and we also want them to rate us compared to our peers. It’s very informative and helps set our benchmarks.
How do you ensure that diverse patient populations are represented, and their unique needs are addressed?
We try to look at what the specific patient groups need, but we also try to go above a specific therapeutic area to make sure we are working with communities that are under-supported. One of the ways we achieve this is by working with our People and Business Resource Groups. I have found this particularly valuable because they possess greater cultural expertise and are often already engaged in direct work with the patient community or advocacy organizations.
That’s one way we help to make sure diverse populations are represented. Additionally, we believe that the valuable expertise provided by our local advocacy leaders is crucial to achieving our diversity goals.
