Patient Engagement and Patient Experience Data in Regulatory Review and Health Technology Assessment: A Global Landscape Review.

BACKGROUND: Working with patients through meaningful patient engagement (PE) and incorporating patient experience data (PXD) is increasingly important in medicines and medical device development. However, PE in the planning, organization, generation, and interpretation of PXD within regulatory and health technology assessment (HTA) decision-making processes remains challenging. We conducted a global review of the PE and PXD landscape to identify evolving resources by geography to support and highlight the potential of integration of PE and PXD in regulatory assessment and HTA. METHODS: A review of literature/public information was conducted (August 2021-January 2023), led by a multistakeholder group comprising those with lived or professional experience of PE and PXD, to identify relevant regulatory and HTA initiatives and resources reviewed and categorized by geography and focus area. RESULTS: Overall, 53 relevant initiatives/resources were identified (global, 14; North America, 11; Europe, 11; Asia, nine; UK, six; Latin America, one; Africa, one). Most focused either on PE (49%) or PXD (28%); few (11%) mentioned both PE and PXD (as largely separate activities) or demonstrated an integration of PE and PXD (11%). CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis demonstrates increasing interest in PE, PXD, and guidance on their use individually in decision-making. However, more work is needed to offer guidance on maximizing the value of patient input into decisions by combining both PE and PXD into regulatory and HTA processes; the necessity of integrating PE in the design and interpretation of PXD programs should be highlighted. A co-created framework to achieve this integration is part of a future project.

Co-creation of the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator: a multi-stakeholder initiative to ensure the patient voice is represented in health decision-making.

BACKGROUND: Putting patients' needs and priorities at the forefront of healthcare initiatives and medical product development is critical to achieve outcomes that matter most to patients. This relies on the integration of early, meaningful patient engagement (PE) to learn what is important to patients, and collection of representative patient experience data (PXD). The increased number of PE/PXD efforts across global regulatory, health technology assessment, and healthcare systems is an important step forward to deliver improved health outcomes for patients. However, these initiatives are fragmented and lack integration, which is necessary to maximize efforts and reduce burden on patients. To overcome these challenges, the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator has been co-created by Patient Focused Medicines Development to provide practical resources that can facilitate and optimize PXD generation, collection, analysis, and dissemination for patient benefit and aims to be applicable across all therapeutic areas for all stakeholders. METHODS: Co-creation of the Navigator took place through an iterative process of validation and formalization driven by a diverse, multi-stakeholder working group with individuals who have varying knowledge/experience in PE/PXD. RESULTS: A series of workshops took place to conduct a gap analysis, develop a taxonomy model, and integrate existing frameworks. The collective insights led to the development of the Navigator consisting of four specific tools in the form of downloadable templates, which can be used to: (1) prioritize outcomes that matter most to patients and their caregivers; (2) select appropriate measurement methods for these outcomes; (3) identify when and why PXD is used throughout the product development cycle for each stakeholder; (4) identify when and why PXD is used throughout the healthcare process for each stakeholder. A public consultation was carried out to collect user feedback before the Navigator was made publicly available in December 2022. CONCLUSION: To our knowledge, the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator is the only publicly available toolkit developed with a multi-stakeholder and disease-agnostic approach providing taxonomically grouped resources to optimize the collection and collation of PXD for patient benefit. Future work will aim to further engage patients by adding a PE dimension to the Navigator.

Engaging patients at the start of healthcare and medical product development projects can help better understand their experiences and what is most important to them. Ultimately this will achieve the best outcomes. However, if not carefully planned, projects that engage patients can lead to inefficiencies, such as patients being asked for the same information repeatedly. The collection of patient experience data­information related to patients' experiences, needs, and priorities­also needs to be carefully managed. To help solve this problem, Patient Focused Medicines Development developed a publicly available "toolkit" called the Global Patient Experience Data Navigator. The Navigator has downloadable templates that can be filled in and used for projects in any disease area and by anyone collecting patient experience data. To represent different perspectives, individuals with a range of experiences and understanding of patient engagement projects worked together to co-create the toolkit. Several meetings took place to understand what the toolkit needed to do and to help provide a structure for the templates. There are four templates in the toolkit. These can be used to: (1) prioritize outcomes that matter most to patients and their caregivers; (2) select the best ways of measuring these outcomes; (3) identify when, why, and by whom patient experience data is used throughout the product development cycle; and (4) identify when, why and by whom patient experience data is used throughout the healthcare process. Future work will utilize public feedback to make the toolkit more user-friendly and provide education on how the Navigator can be used.

Building from Patient Experiences to Deliver Patient-Focused Healthcare Systems in Collaboration with Patients: A Call to Action.

Patients' experiences of their diagnosis, condition, and treatment (including the impact on their lives), and their experiences surrounding expectations of care, are becoming increasingly important in shaping healthcare systems that meet the evolving needs and priorities of different patient communities over time; this is an ongoing goal of all healthcare stakeholders. Current approaches that capture patient experiences with data are fragmented, resulting in duplication of effort, numerous requests for information, and increased patient burden. Application of patient experience data to inform healthcare decisions is still emerging and there remains an opportunity to align diverse stakeholders on the value of these data to strengthen healthcare systems. Given the collective value of understanding patient experiences across multiple stakeholder groups, we propose a more aligned approach to the collection of patient experience data. This approach is built on the principle that the patients' experiences are the starting point, and not just something to be considered at the end of the process. It must also be based on meaningful patient engagement, where patients are collaborators and decision makers at each step, thereby ensuring their needs and priorities are accurately reflected. The resulting data and evidence should be made available for all stakeholders, to inform their decision making and healthcare strategies in ways that meet patient priorities. We call for multi-stakeholder collaboration that will deliver healthcare systems and interventions that are better centered around and tailored to patient experiences, and that will help address patients' unmet needs.

Pigeon nidopallium caudolaterale, entopallium, and mesopallium ventrolaterale neural responses during categorisation of Monet and Picasso paintings.

Pigeons can successfully discriminate between sets of Picasso and Monet paintings. We recorded from three pallial brain areas: the nidopallium caudolaterale (NCL), an analogue of mammalian prefrontal cortex; the entopallium (ENTO), an intermediary visual area similar to primate extrastriate cortex; and the mesopallium ventrolaterale (MVL), a higher-order visual area similar to primate higher-order extrastriate cortex, while pigeons performed an S+/S- Picasso versus Monet discrimination task. In NCL, we found that activity reflected reward-driven categorisation, with a strong left-hemisphere dominance. In ENTO, we found that activity reflected stimulus-driven categorisation, also with a strong left-hemisphere dominance. Finally, in MVL, we found that activity reflected stimulus-driven categorisation, but no hemispheric differences were apparent. We argue that while NCL and ENTO primarily use reward and stimulus information, respectively, to discriminate Picasso and Monet paintings, both areas are also capable of integrating the other type of information during categorisation. We also argue that MVL functions similarly to ENTO in that it uses stimulus information to discriminate paintings, although not in an identical way. The current study adds some preliminary evidence to previous literature which emphasises visual lateralisation during discrimination learning in pigeons.