BEST PATIENTS PHARMACIST ENGAGEMENT PROGRAM

RITE AID | GO! PRODUCTIONSAPRIL, 29 2011

OVERVIEWRite Aid is in the midst of a 16-month long Best Patients analysis. Best Patients are the most valuable Rite Aid pharmacy customers. While they represent just 5% of Rite Aid’s total patients, they yield 45% of the pharmacy’s business. The extensive Best Patients study will detect therapy patterns and early warning signs to identify these high value patients for Rite Aid pharmacies. The research will then inform strategies and best practices to serve Best Patients best, so they feel confident in Rite Aid’s care for years to come.

Once the study concludes, Rite Aid leadership will need to communicate its findings to its nationwide network of 11,000 pharmacists. Through the Best Patients program, pharmacists will come to understand who the Best Patients are, and how pharmacies can make a significant, positive difference in their lives by providing outstanding service.

The question is, exactly how will the Best Patients program engage and inform Rite Aid pharmacists across the country?

STRATEGIC APPROACHWe considered developing an online event experience to support the Best Patients program, but after careful reflection, we do not feel an online event is the right solution. Online event initiatives require long stretches of participation from users, and pharmacists are simply too busy during their workday to devote the time necessary to make an online event most effective. An online event is also technologically complex, making it challenging to implement within Rite Aid’s internal systems.

We understand what we really need to do with the Best Patients program is make an emotional connection with the pharmacists. Pharmacists already have a basic understanding of the value of Best Patients, so we don’t need to “train” them in the traditional sense. Rather we need to reinforce what they already know, and convey some additional strategies that will build on that knowledge, and put Best Patients in a meaningful, personal, emotional context.

One of the most powerful ways to make an emotional connection with an audience is through video. Films and videos have the power to replicate real life and create empathy in an audience.

We also know that people learn best by doing, and interactivity is paramount to creating lasting effects.

So we recommend leveraging the powers of both video and interactive learning to create a revolutionary Rite Aid Best Patients program to engage, educate and empower pharmacists with interactive video.

INTERACTIVE VIDEO_ EXAMPLE

Interactive videos are like choose-your-own-adventure games. They enable viewers to control the story by making decisions along the way.

To see what we mean, click on the image below to view an interactive film recently released by Mercedes-Benz:

Notice the film-like quality of the Mercedes-Benz production, and how much more engaged you are with the content when you have the power to control the outcome. This is the type of experience we recommend for the Best Patients program.

BEST PATIENTS_ INTERACTIVE VIDEO PROGRAM

We envision an interactive video in which pharmacists can first select their point-of-view, choosing whether they want to play the role of pharmacist or patient throughout the video. Then over the course of the experience, participants will encounter characters and make choices that determine how the video plays out.

For example, the user playing the role of pharmacist is approached by a patient. Through a simulated conversation, the patient conveys her treatment plan, then the user is prompted to evaluate whether the patient is considered a Best Patient. The users clicks to make a choice, setting into action a series of events that unfold over the course of a few minutes. If the user makes the right choices along the way, the Best Patient is satisfied and properly cared for. If the pharmacist makes a misstep, the Best Patient takes her business elsewhere.

In the role of patient, the user experiences the pharmacy from the other side of the counter. Most pharmacists would act as role models, demonstrating the professionalism, courtesy, sensitivity, accuracy and caring of the ideal Rite Aid pharmacist. To shake it up, maybe one pharmacist provides comic relief, always doing the wrong thing in a funny way…

This is but a glimpse of what could come of this video experience. The possibilities are great, but at this point the characters and scenarios are to be determined. We still have much to learn. Eventually we would work together to find the right narratives, and weave in the strategies and best practices determined by your research study. We’ll develop scenarios and characters that will make the interactive video experience as realistic and effective as possible. And with interstitial messaging woven throughout each film-like experience, we’ll ensure participants take away key learnings from the research currently underway.

WHY IT WORKSWe believe a self-guided, film-like experience is the right medium to support the Best Patients program and deliver results because it is:

InteractiveThis approach integrates role-play training with the emotional resonance of film. By directing their own film experience, pharmacists will actively buy into the Best Patients program. The dynamic, strategically designed, simulated encounters will create insights about Best Patients, and empower pharmacists with the proven best practices they need to provide the utmost service to these loyal and high value customers.

Life-likeFrom both the patient’s and pharmacist’s perspectives, the users will experience life-like emotional encounters that will color their daily work experiences. The film will tell stories of the Best Patients at the heart of this program. And it will make the pharmacists the stars of their own videos.

CoolInteractive video is a fresh and innovative medium. This approach will catch people’s attention, and demonstrate how Rite Aid is taking important steps to do things differently to help people best. It’s a cutting-edge approach to launch an exciting new program. And the experience will be so intriguing, impressive and fun, pharmacists will want to participate.

SegmentedThe film experiences will be designed to last a few minutes at a time, so pharmacists can participate during their busy workday with limited computer access.

This solution can also roll out to everyone, yet it creates customized, self-guided learning experiences for each individual. Pharmacists can explore the interactive video one-on-one, when it works for them.

SustainableAn interactive video is also not simply a one-off experience – users can go back time and time again to encounter different characters and scenarios, and change the course of the video to experience more content.

The production of the interactive video can also easily be changed and revised over time. We could create another interactive video around your Wellness Plus program for example, and weave the learnings and key messages around that program into the interactive video experience. The platform we create on your system could be also used to support other programs down the line.

EfficientInteractive video is a cost effective way to deliver focused information to your network of 11,000 pharmacists in an simple and interesting way. The medium complements other communication channels. It could take the place of ordinary training videos, and introduce a new level of interactive learning to Rite Aid wellness experts across the country.

TECHNICAL SOLUTIONTechnologically, the interactive film would be deployed on Rite Aid’s internal network to make it easy for pharmacists to access the film from their workplace computers.

The film would require no user registration or authentication, but it would require input from the pharmacist in order to progress or to play. We could create a pop up screen to prompt participants to view the interactive video at the start of each day when they first log in to the computers. This way Best Patients will become top-of-mind for the duration of the program and beyond. We could also create the interactive video to play off a CD for manager and senior leadership who might prefer to participate on their personal computers.

A range of authoring platforms could be used to create the film. This might be an ideal opportunity to use Adobe Flash, which would result in relatively self-contained project files that are easy to deploy. (Note: Most mobile devices do not support Flash, which is something to consider if we’re looking to develop a mobile-friendly extension of the video. However, we think the film is most likely to be accessed from computers, not from mobile devices.)

Ultimately, the choice of platform, the final feature set, the communication rollout plan and the opportunities for interactivity would only be decided after collaborative planning sessions involving Rite Aid stakeholders.

We look forward to having those conversations with the Rite Aid team, and becoming partners in the development of a Best Patients program that will achieve your every goal for this initiative.

THANK YOU!