One of the biggest challenges facing primary care physicians treating patients with high cholesterol is getting patients to agree and adhere to recommended treatments, be they in the form of pharmaceutical therapy, lifestyle modifications, or a combination of each. At the annual American Academy of Communication in Healthcare (AACH ‘08) conference in Madison this month, David Franke, manager of analytics for Verilogue, will reveal the four primary concerns patients use to negotiate their way out of treatment during clinical visits with primary care physicians. These patient concerns include: dietary restrictions, treatment duration, treatment reputation and treatment side effects.

Drawn from a larger market-based study of 199 authentic physician-patient interactions concerning high cholesterol, the complete results to be presented in Madison later this month demonstrate the importance and value of understanding the true underlying drivers of patient behavior in clinical settings. “Patient concerns, along with the manner in which they are brought up in clinical interactions, reveal much about patients’ latent and explicit values, attitudes and beliefs about high cholesterol and its treatment,” said Mr. Franke.

Verilogue’s findings indicate that patients generally are not concerned with high cholesterol as a disease and, consequently, do not view pharmacological treatment as important or necessary, even after alternative forms of treatment such as diet and exercise have failed. Jamison Barnett, Verilogue’s Vice President, remarked that “by analyzing large numbers of physician-patient interactions at the actual point-of-practice, we are better able to understand how specific physician and patient behaviors influence healthcare outcomes.”

Verilogue’s analyses draw on methods of linguistic and discourse analysis, principles of traditional market research, and natural language processing technology to extract rich insights from authentic clinical interactions.

About Verilogue

Verilogue brings patients, physicians and the healthcare industry together to share information, enhance disease understanding and participate in medical marketing research. Verilogue’s patent-pending technology system captures information at the Point of Practice™ and enables physicians to digitally record conversations with select patients each month. Verilogue provides a secure and confidential way for patients and physicians to share opinions during office interactions.

The physician and patient information collected by Verilogue is made anonymous and used by the healthcare industry to further enhance their understanding of the numerous diseases that face our society today. By participating in this research, we come together with one common goal, to win the fight against disease. Verilogue was named Technology Startup Company of the Year by the Eastern Technology Council. www.verilogue.com