Redefining Patient Experiences Through AEM

Challenge

50 million Americans suffer from chronic pain. Chronic pain is a complicated and multifaceted condition that often leaves patients feeling confused about their condition and options for relief. 

Our client, a global leader in medical technology, was looking to connect with pain patients who have endured a long and confusing search for effective relief. These patients may have spent years navigating the referral pathway or taken the route of invasive surgery, only to find ongoing pain. Patients may not have heard of nor received information on our client’s minimally invasive therapy options for addressing chronic pain or lumbar spinal stenosis.

To help patients overcome chronic pain, our client’s goal was to increase awareness of three non-pharmacologic pain therapies: spinal cord stimulation, lumbar spinal stenosis, and radiofrequency ablation. This would be accomplished by launching an interactive pain assessment questionnaire, which would help our client gain insights into the patient's pain experience and enable the creation of a personalized treatment plan.

In addition to launching a pain assessment questionnaire, the client was also looking to consolidate direct-to-patient microsites into one domain and convert their current CMS into Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Sites. To ensure their new AEM Sites instance was set up strategically and according to best practices, the client partnered with MERGE to ensure a seamless migration. 

Together, MERGE and the client set out to accomplish three key objectives: 

• Consolidate two separate microsites, which lived on disparate platforms and were outdated from a design standpoint
• Move to an enterprise technology stack which aligned with corporate goals, namely Adobe Experience Manager Sites for the CMS, and integration with Salesforce for CRM and sales support
• Develop a patient-friendly experience and ensure content is tailored to every aspect of the pain journey 

Outcome

MERGE leveraged existing data on the patient journey and augmented it with call center listening to gain insight into ‘’real patient’ experiences. From here, MERGE conducted primary research, consisting of user interviews to uncover the emotional and educational needs and wants, as well as prototype usability testing to develop the new website. This data was leveraged to determine the needs of patients in their pain management journey. The research was then compiled into a comprehensive strategic roadmap, which served as a guiding framework to move the project forward.

Overall, the solution consisted of these three components:  

 • Develop a compelling web experience that also ensures a strong lead generation engine by pulling in upper-funnel pain patients to the client’s pain assessment quiz 
 • Increase awareness of the treatments offered for chronic pain
 • Implement a modern set of Adobe Experience Manager Sites components and templates to streamline the client’s internal workflow and empower their team to efficiently rebuild and enhance site design in a more innovative manner.

“MERGE pushed the entire organization to be more strategic in AEM. They helped us re-examine our AEM roadmap and get more sophisticated in the platform. Rather than seeing AEM as templates and components, we now view it as an interactive website experience.”

Results

The new Adobe Experience Manager Sites components created an enhanced, customized patient experience that is as personalized as the pain itself. Arriving at the client’s new website, patients are immediately welcomed with approachable creative and a clear promise of relief. 

From there, patients are guided to a pain assessment quiz that leads to tailored information on the client’s innovative non-pharmacologic treatments and a physician locator tool for connecting patients to nearby clinicians, which was brought to life through an AEM and SFMC integration. 

The physician locator tool pulls data from SFMC to showcase nearby physicians on their website, while the pain assessment quiz captures answers from site visitors and then feeds responses into SFMC as a lead for their sales team to pursue.

With its highly personalized and streamlined experience, the new website is more than an educational site – it’s a destination for discovering the promise of innovative treatments and receiving customized support.

Lastly, the site enhancements, driven by MERGE’s Adobe expertise, are built on a modern and flexible set of AEM components. This ensures the website can seamlessly evolve with future updates and iterations, providing the client with a robust foundation for ongoing scalability and expansion.

"It can be challenging to find agencies who can offer both strategic and tactical guidance – often they are only good at one or the other or rely on third-party partners. MERGE offered the full shop – from planning and strategy to design and implementation.”