Mapping the Patient Journey Towards Actionable Beyond the Pill Solutions for NCDs

Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are responsible for 71% of all worldwide mortality each year. Despite a wealth of knowledge that offers evidence-based expert guidance for managing illness and preventing risk, in many parts of the world whether in high-income or low-income countries, we are still not achieving optimal and expected health outcomes, including and especially for NCDs.

There's a need to consider an inclusive approach when designing and implementing interventions.

Our recently published paper takes a critical look at the patient journey touchpoints and uses data to validate it in a way that shifts the focus from just the disease to the entire journey, involving prevention and quality of life. This is part of the Mapping the Patient Journey Towards Actionable Beyond the Pill Solutions initiative (MAPS), a collaborative effort between IAPO and Viatris. 

Mapping the Patient Journey Towards Actionable Beyond the Pill Solutions for NCDs describes a methodology to map this journey and plan interventions at various touchpoints for solutions that improve awareness to better engage patients to predict and prevent risk factors that lead to negative health consequences for NCDs.

The key touchpoints along the patient journey include awareness, screening, diagnosis, treatment, adherence, and control or remission. MAPS employs an evidence mapping methodology that follows a three-step semisystematic review:

1) systematic peer-reviewed database search;

2) unstructured searches of local or real-world data; and

3) expert opinion. Evidence generation and visualization is based on locally validated and deduplicated data published over the last 10 years.

This approach will be the first to provide quantitative mapping of the different stages of the patient journey for selected NCDs in LMICs. By focusing on local, patient-centric data, the goal of the MAPS initiative is to address and prioritize local research and knowledge gaps, then contribute to evidence-based, high-quality, and affordable advances in the management of NCDs in LMICs. This will ultimately improve patient outcomes and contribute towards the achievement of global NCD targets.

• Read the paper on the Dove Press Journal 
• Read the MAPS Whitepaper

  MAPS launch at GPC2020