Putting patients first: How seven specialty medicine stakeholders rose to the Covid challenge
July 23, 2020
When the pandemic lockdowns rolled into Canada, they threatened to disrupt the specialty drug supply chain and put patients depending on these drugs in peril. Without missing a beat, these key players in the specialty drug world did what it took to avert this outcome.
Deep caring: Bayshore Specialty Rx
When Bayshore learned that a government Covid testing site started operating next door to one of its infusion clinics, the specialty service provider, refusing to put its immunocompromised patients at risk, acted immediately to secure alternative clinic sites and relocate the patients. The company was also able to import enough PPE to supply not only its frontline staff, but all patients requiring treatment on a national basis.
Throughout the uncertainty and changing conditions due to the pandemic, Bayshore continued to meet the needs of each patient. In one case, a patient was too afraid of Covid to receive a home visit and injection from a nurse, even with both of them wearing the appropriate PPE. “The nurse parked her car in the driveway and trained the patient to self-inject from there.” says Karl Frank, Divisional Director, Specialty Rx at Bayshore. All told, “Our staff have been heroic in their efforts to support patients during this challenging time.”
Helping patients weather the storm: BioScript Solutions
When the coronavirus pandemic rolled in, so did the feeling of apprehension amongst BioScript patients who were concerned about proceeding with their infusion and injection appointments. Recognizing the anxiety their patients were facing, the BioScript team put stringent protocols in place, from screening and sanitizing to limits on the number of patients in a clinic. This meant hiring extra nurses and increasing clinic operating hours — an extra cost that BioScript absorbed without hesitation. By the following month, “clinic appointments returned to our expected levels, and we continue to forecast a positive trend,” says BioScript’s Marc Grenier, Vice President, Operations.
BioScript also elevated its communications to patients and other external stakeholders with weekly status updates focusing on operational strategies. “From the onset of COVID-19, we have led with open, transparent operational communications to our partners as well as our patients, and that approach has been widely recognized and appreciated,” says Chris Dalseg, Vice President, Strategic Growth and Marketing, who expects that “in the future, manufacturers and specialty partners will have more comprehensive conversations with regards to business continuity plans.”
Agility under pressure: McKesson Specialty Health
When the pandemic blew in, many patients began postponing their scheduled infusions at McKesson’s INVIVA clinics: they were too scared. While their reaction made sense, patients needed treatment to maintain their health. Putting its trademark agility to the test, McKesson set up health screening protocols at the clinics, ramped up safety measures, and kept patients abreast of the changes through weekly updates. Thus reassured, patients returned to the clinics.
With job loss or interruption affecting their insurance benefits, many patients also had concerns about accessing and paying for their costly medications. “We told our patients not to worry, that we would retroactively manage the financial aspects for them,” says Karen Chuk, Vice-President of McKesson Specialty Pharmacy Services. “We even managed to deliver medications to patients stuck outside the country,” she adds. “Our overarching goal was to leave no patient behind.”
Driving insights: Pentavere
Throughout the Covid crisis, Pentavere has intensified its quest to extract meaningful data from unstructured health information. The need for meaningful real-world data is now more important than ever. For example: What are the expected outcomes of a Covid infection in a female, aged 40 to 60, with type 2 diabetes and hypertension, to support that type of patient to better assess their own risk?
Strong data—and the insights it generates—is no less important in such therapeutic areas as oncology, which represents 60 percent of Pentavere’s work. Lung cancer, for example, comes in several different subtypes, each one requiring a different treatment approach. “We need data and testing to get each patient on the right therapy,” says Pentavere founder and CEO Aaron Leibtag. As an outcome of the pandemic, Leibtag expects that “industry, hospitals and prescribers will be more willing to collaborate to bridge our data gaps. Good data saves lives.”
A step ahead: Sentrex Health Solutions
Sentrex lost no time in adapting to Covid. Anticipating the closure of hospital clinics, the company put an ingenious Plan B in place: outfit portable school rooms into temporary injection centres and “install” them into parking lots near hospitals. While the need for this strategy fell away, “we were ready for anything,” says Sentrex partner Taflyn Hornibrook, who also heads Patient Programs and Stakeholder Relations.
Sentrex serves a large population of nursing-home residents receiving injected medications for vision disease, who faced a heartbreaking choice: go to the injection clinic and risk getting Covid, or delaying treatment and risk losing vision. Sentrex’s solution? A “treatment bubble.” Small groups of patients were bussed from nursing home to clinic, where they completed registration and injections in just a few minutes. “We eliminated all non-essential steps and kept the spaces sterile,” says Hornibrook. “It gave patients the comfort level they needed.”
Thinking big and removing barriers: Specialty Health Network
The Specialty Health Network (SHN), a division of Shoppers Drug Mart, expected the Covid crisis to drive up demand for home injection services—but not by 300 percent. SHN took the surge as an opportunity to step up. Within three weeks, the organization had set up Medeo, a virtual platform for patient consults, including online injection training. According to Shannon Bowie, SHN’s Senior Director of Specialty Programs, “the service has been extraordinarily well received by our patients.”
Meanwhile, hospitals constrained by Covid restrictions approached SHN for help navigating patients who no longer had a treatment home. Without missing a beat, SHN transitioned these patients to home nursing or to their virtual platform. SHN also worked with specialty drug manufacturers to streamline delivery of medications. To make this happen, “we had to work with regulators to minimize barriers,” says Bowie. “It was a race against time, but it paid off.”
Laser Focus: STI
When manufacturers asked STI for help managing the Covid pandemic, they all wanted the same thing: uninterrupted treatment for their patients. STI zeroed in on the most important hurdles and put mitigating supports in place—all within a week. For example, they replaced the physical cards used to get drug samples with e-cards and created a digital platform to distribute the cards. “Our tight focus is what made it possible,” says Josée St. Martin, STI’s Senior Director of Sales, Program Management & Analytics.
Acting on internal data showing that 70 percent of physicians planned to reduce their interactions with pharma reps,19 STI helped its clients create business continuity plans to absorb this change. The company also evolved its virtual capabilities to streamline communication between the different actors in the patient journey. “We’re doing our part to bring the industry into the digital age,” says St. Martin. “What hasn’t changed is that the patient comes first.”
References:
19. Impact of COVID-19 on HCP practices: IQVIA market research. May 2020.