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Where Dialogue Meets Actions: The BEAMER Consortium Gathering in Portugal

Not much time has passed since the entire BEAMER consortium came together in Porto (Portugal) for the first time ever. The two-day experience was, to say the least, energetic and meaningful. Organisation partners who had spent the initial year of the project coordinating online could now meet their colleagues in person and carry the conversation even further.

And, when we reflect on the BEAMER consortium meeting, perhaps the word “conversation” best describes what took place in the city filled with historical sites and bright blue tiles.

Throughout these two days, project partners spoke and listened to one another about advances made and the next steps needed to help promote progress. Disagreements occurred, of course, but like any gathering of different expert profiles (pharma, patient organisations, SMEs, academia and healthcare professionals), only an open and transparent exchange of words would pave the way for breakthrough insights and impactful action.

BEAMER Consortium Members Standing for Group Picture

BEAMER Consortium Members in Porto, Portugal (September 2022)

For instance, the consortium fully agreed that stakeholder engagement–especially with individuals with health conditions–would be key to developing a successful BEAMER model. “Successful” within this context means the model to be developed will be fitted to the unique needs of end-users. Although debate arose on the approach in contacting and involving different stakeholders, e.g., healthcare professionals or policymakers, regularly through a 5-year project, we could outline and review an initial draft procedure that enables all partners and their expertise to contribute (this is currently being formalised internally for execution in the coming month).

…only an open and transparent exchange of words would pave the way for breakthrough insights and impactful action.

This scenario is just one example of many, in which we saw how honest, focused conversations could invite desirable outcomes–be it a newly structured process or even the consideration of data ownership and protection practices. There is still much more to accomplish in our case, given that we just stepped into year 2 of the project. However, if we keep speaking with one another and attentively listening to ensure that end-users will benefit, there is no doubt that the BEAMER project will have much to say in little time.

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Would you like to see a sneak peek of the two-day BEAMER consortium meeting in Porto, Portugal? Watch the video below and listen to Elisio Costas (University of Oporto) and Claire Everitt (Pfizer) as they speak about the project, its aims and potential impact.

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Healthcare Professional

The primary aim of the end user personas is to support the creation of materials to support the implementation of the BEAMER model framework and to help define requirements for the elements of the BEAMER model framework. Hence, healthcare professionals (HCPs) represent the primary envisaged end user group of the BEAMER model framework and the associated Adherence Intelligence Visualisation Platform (AIVP)

It is one learning from the joint design process that the job titles of healthcare professional team members do not necessarily predict the roles they would play within the change management process for implementing BEAMER and installing it as a standard model within healthcare. Additionally, the role and responsibilities of certain job titles, for example nurse, varies across different healthcare systems and would affect how they interact with the BEAMER model outputs and the access they would be permitted and so it would not be helpful to include these job titles: The four personas represent role-independent archetypes within the group of HCPs. They encompass a Managerial HCP Persona, an Implementer HCP Persona, a Support HCP Persona, and a Established HCP Persona.

These healthcare professional personas may be further tailored to specific healthcare settings depending on the needs of the individual pilot sites. Thus, adapted or spin-off versions of these original personas may be considered. The persona displays include a summarising statement, goals, challenges, experience, and needs to enhance the accessibility and usability of the model while minimising user burden.

Patient Organisation

Patient organisations are considered potential users of the model outputs. Consequently, personas were designed for these groups to assure that the implementation materials may also support their needs in the longer term, thus fostering sustainability of the project outputs.

The identified focus areas within this persona are goals, needs, skills and tools, along with potential challenges anticipated during the implementation process. The persona emphasises awareness-raising, capacity building, education, peer support provision, and the promotion of research and development in therapeutic care.

The patient organisation persona serves as a theoretical framework representing how patient organisations could benefit from and include the BEAMER model framework in their therapy and care related as well as their organisational work. This persona comprises the needs, goals, challenges and necessary tools, facilitating preparation and implementation of the model and optimising the user experience of patient organisations as end users of the BEAMER model framework. It can be used as a guide to identify potential obstacles and understand the prerequisites for a patient organisation to successfully adopt and integrate the BEAMER model framework.

“In implementing the BEAMER model, we want to be able to respond to the different needs of our patients to ensure their adherence, build a supportive community and improve outcomes.”