Part
01
of four
Part
01
Diabetes Monitor Customer Journey - Doctors
The exact journey of Canadian Health Care Professionals who are diagnosing diabetes and subsequently prescribing a blood glucose meter does not appear to be available in the public domain. Below, the research team has highlighted some helpful findings and provided an outline of the research strategies deployed in an attempt to obtain the requested information.
Helpful findings
- When prescribing a blood glucose meter, doctors will discuss the price with their patients, instruct the patients regarding meal schedule, the test schedule and the target levels.
- According to Vox, doctors learn from colleagues, specialty society meetings and medical device companies about new medical procedures.
- In Canada, doctors are often busy so they don't have time to learn about new medical products themselves, which is why they rely on pharmaceutical representatives.
- The recently introduced Physician Payments Sunshine Act requires medical device and equipment companies to report physician compensations, which improves financial connection transparency.
- During the diabetes testing process, the doctor will perform one of the following three tests: [1] the fasting glucose test, [2] the oral glucose tolerance, or [3] the A1c blood test.
Research strategy
To start the search, the research team has searched healthcare publications such as Healthline, the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists and WebMD, searching for reports on the topic. The idea behind this search attempt was that patients want to know the decision-making process of doctors when it comes to glucose meters, which is why the patient advice publications might report on this topic. While information on the decision-making journey was available in these types of sources, the information focused on patients rather than doctors. Some scattered information regarding the process doctors go through when prescribing a blood glucose meter was available in these types of sources, however this was very brief and focused exclusively on the prescription process. No information was uncovered regarding where and how doctors are educated about these products, why they convert from non-consumer to consumer or what prevents them from converting.
Next, we have scanned research databases such as Semantic Scholar, Research Gate and the National Center for Biotechnology Information, searching for studies, academic articles and research papers that focus on this topic, hoping to find relevant insights specific to Canada. Our goal was to find data-backed studies which we could use to answer the query, or a least to locate relevant insights that are specific to Canada. Even though many studies focused on patients' confidence in doctors' decisions surrounding diabetes treatment, those that specifically described the doctors' decision-making process were not focused on Canada, instead, the studies were focused on another specific country such as Ireland. After exhaustive search through studies, no relevant insights specific to Canada were uncovered, which is why this strategy has also failed.
Following this, the research team has turned to locating direct statements from Canadian doctors and health care professionals themselves that concern the journey of diagnosing diabetes and prescribing a glucose meter, specifically surrounding where and how they learn about the products and what motivates them to buy it, as well as what might prevent them from buying or using the glucose meters. We've deployed this strategy because of an assumption that clinicians themselves likely know the physicians' journey surrounding glucose meter implementation and might disclose this information publicly. To find this information, we've consulted various Canadian clinician blogs including Cmaj Blogs and the Canadian Medical Association. What we hoped to find were interviews with physicians, or articles written by physicians that address the topic under investigation. After extensive search, the team uncovered no relevant interviews, blog articles or statements that specifically focused on Canada. The available information did not pertain to glucose meter products in particular and focused on the global level, with some information focusing on the US.