Can COVID-19 Design a Better World for People Living with Chronic Conditions?
Authored by Tim Fisher, PhD
The piece you’re about to read is from Klick Health’s Life (Sciences) After COVID-19 series, a collection of expert perspectives designed to inform and inspire the life sciences community for the coming changes and opportunities we anticipate as a result of this global health crisis.
The Insight
With COVID-19, we are collectively going through an illness experience. And because of the sheer number of people impacted, the world is rapidly adapting in big and small ways. These adaptations are showing us new possibilities of a world better designed for living with illness. The idea of COVID-19 as a collective illness experience is powerful to think about.
Consider how often patients living with chronic conditions are:
struggling to maintain their employment,
needing physical accommodations,
feeling isolated at home, and
potentially rationing their medications.
And now consider with COVID-19 how quickly:
workplaces shifted to enable work from home,
businesses accommodated physical distancing,
new services emerged to deal with the experience of isolation, and
new methods were developed to enable the timely delivery of medications.
Looking at the similarities between the lived experience of people with chronic conditions and our life with COVID-19, we begin to better understand some of our patients’ struggles and the ways in which the world needs to and can adapt.
In life sciences, we talk a lot about patient empathy. We try to know, intellectually, what our patients go through, but it’s another thing to really know the constraints they experience. Many of us living under the threat of COVID-19 are feeling a sense of loss, uncertainty, and isolation—the same kinds of feelings many patients with chronic conditions feel. We are also witnessing firsthand how broader contextual factors—like our finances and social support—impact our health and ability to cope. And, in response to these challenges, we’re trying to solve the same kinds of problems many patients face.
To be clear, using our current experience with COVID-19 as an analogue isn’t perfect. Chronic conditions are typically lifelong, whereas most of us likely imagine a future state where COVID-19 is no longer an immediate threat. But, even imperfect, the comparison between our current experience and life with a chronic condition is illuminating. And it just might help us design a better world for patients. Consider:
What adaptations—products, services, business models, work-arounds—have been created as a result of COVID-19 that could be leveraged for patients living with chronic disease going forward?
What have you done as a company for your employees and how could the learning be used to develop new service offerings or partnerships to meet certain patient needs?
What are the pain points that you’re experiencing that are similar to those that patients with chronic conditions also deal with and that are unaddressed? How could we begin to solve these unmet needs?
The Evidence
Let’s contrast our life with COVID-19 to three moments generally experienced by those living with a chronic condition:
Our “diagnosis” moment
Sociologist Michael Bury describes a diagnosis as a “biographical disruption” because it disrupts so many of the taken-for-granted assumptions of everyday life. While most of us, thankfully, haven’t had COVID-19, our lives have been disrupted and we’ve had to come to terms with the threat of the virus, as well as our own susceptibility—we’ll call this our “diagnosis” moment.
While many patients with a chronic condition experience a diagnosis phase on their own or with a small group of loved ones, our context is very different. We are going through COVID-19 collectively.
The struggle for control
Patients living with a chronic condition want to feel like they have the “upper hand” over their condition, but they often struggle to influence their own outcomes and the environment around them.
Our diminished lifeworld
The world can feel like it’s shrinking for patients living with a chronic condition, especially if mobility is limited or they experience depression and withdraw from the people around them.
One of the hallmarks and greatest challenges of life with COVID-19 has been the experience of isolation.
Can COVID-19 Design a Better World for People Living with Chronic Conditions?
We hope you enjoyed reading this POV preview. Make sure to download to view the complete content.
Author
Tim Fisher, PhD
VP, Behavioral Science
Tim has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California. He started his career as a professor of sociology and has developed a unique expertise in translating theories about human behavior into actionable strategies that create meaningful brands, programs and solutions. He is passionate about understanding the human dynamics underlying healthcare challenges and how—when we take these into account—we can improve well-being and create better healthcare experiences. Tim has worked in numerous therapeutic areas and has applied behavioral science thinking in the design of strategies and solutions for a wide range of target audiences.
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