Situation
In recent years, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed rapidly increasing demand for healthcare services. Despite rising healthcare spending in both the public and private sectors, some high-cost and specialty treatments remain unaffordable for a select number of patients in the country, primarily expats, which make up 88% of UAE’s population.
To address the lack of healthcare access innovation, a multinational pharmaceutical company partnered with Axios to design an innovative strategy to help improve access to treatment for more than a dozen critical medications to treat Hematology, Immunology, Pulmonology, Neuroscience and cardiovascular diseases.
initiate a shared payment access program to increase. The program initiated in the UAE, but has since expanded to other countries in the region facing similar challenges.
Solution
Axios believes that effective treatment adherence programs are personalized to the needs of individual patients. To design a more effective solution to help patients stay on treatment, Axios turned to its proprietary Patient Needs Assessment Tool (PNAT).
PNAT assesses the risk factors that could lead the patient to stop treatment and helps determine the most effective adherence interventions for that particular patient based on his/her identified risk factors. It was built around the five dimensions of adherence set by the World Health Organization (WHO). It uses a qualitative and semi-quantitative questionnaire to identify and document individual patient risk factors and apprehensions that may lead to poor adherence or discontinuation of treatment. The results are then used to develop a personalized adherence plan targeting these risk factors to support patients in their treatment journey.
In the case of MS patients in Saudi Arabia, in partnership with the Ministry of Health, local MS patient associations and other parties, the following services were made available to improve treatment adherence and improve a patient’s quality of life:
- Educational sessions for patients to increase awareness and knowledge about MS and treatment
- An on-demand support careline to receive and answer patient queries
- Ongoing treatment reminders and follow-up plans
- Patient forums to help empower and motivate patients and caregivers
- Auto-injectors to ease a patient’s injecting process, available upon a patient’s request
Results
The Program has been running for more than 11 years and has grown to include 23 medications and support patients across the MENA region.
Patient acceptability. More than 5,000 patients have been supported over the years, receiving prescribed medicines they would otherwise not be able to afford.
Broad network of support. Through the program, Axios has built a network of governmental agencies, 38 regional charities, and in excess of 10 health societies, 20 patient organizations, 500 pharmacies, and 100 hospitals to support patients enrolled in the program.
A role model for access. In the UAE, this was the first access program to be approved by the nation’s health authorities. In the decade since it has become a role model for other public health programs in the region and helped inform the development of critical access guidelines used by healthcare stakeholders across the region.
