Mapping Missed Voices to Maximize Opportunities: The Role of Patient Journey Maps and Caregiver Perspectives in Informing Commercial Strategy

Table of Contents

The Value of Caregiver Perspectives

Case in Point: Spinnaker's Take on Inclusive Journey Mapping

The View from the Crow's Nest

Over the last decade, patient journey mapping has seen rapid growth with over 75% of current literature produced since 2015 (1). Patient journey mapping is an illustrative tool developed to highlight the experiences of patients as they navigate the healthcare space (2). These mapping exercises follow patients along major points of their journey, right from symptom onset to post-treatment care, and offer key insights into the roadblocks and gateways that shape a patient’s path through healthcare landscapes (2). Integrating these findings into trial design, product positioning, and marketing narratives allows companies to optimize both user satisfaction and commercial success.  

While patient journey mapping is an invaluable learning resource, there are common limitations to current practices: 

• Incomplete mapping of the care continuum, which overlooks challenges experienced at critical times, such as pre-symptoms, misdiagnoses and gaps during outpatient visits (3). 

• Linear, unidirectional patient maps, which oversimplify patient journeys by neglecting the noise that arises from delays in diagnosis, hesitation to start treatment, and the repeated trial and error process of finding the right therapy. 

• Biased recruitment strategies, which often attract resource-rich and highly adherent patients from high-income countries, overestimating product profitability and relevance in low-income contexts (4). 

• Retrospective data collection, which prevents direct patient voices from being captured, obscuring the extent to which patient realities are represented on journey maps (5). 

  
  

By refining mapping exercises to follow a diverse group of patients across their complete healthcare journey in real-time, tracking both the physical and emotional challenges they face at each step of the way, companies can gain insight to improve their product profiles and maximize patient engagement and satisfaction. 

By refining mapping exercises to follow a diverse group of patients across their complete healthcare journey in real-time... companies can gain insight to improve their product profiles and maximize patient engagement and satisfaction. 

The Value of Caregiver Perspectives on Patient Journey Mapping

Journey maps should also be expanded to incorporate the caregiver’s voice.  

In the U.S., 1 in 4 adults are caregivers, and 30% of them care for a child and an adult at the same time (6). Of these caregivers, 25% also find it difficult to prioritize their own health and wellbeing (6). Additionally, treatment formulations and regimens have become increasingly complex, commanding higher emotional, technical, and logistical investments from caregivers (6). 

This has many important implications: 

• Caregivers’ influence treatment adoption: Caregivers shape patient preferences and directly impact whether a patient will try a new treatment. Modifying product messaging to include non-clinical endpoints that address their concerns can strengthen support and drive higher rates of product uptake.  

• Caregivers value products that are simple and convenient: Products designed to meet clinical goals while ensuring ease and practicality for caregivers can have a positive impact on their emotional and physical bandwidth, driving treatment uptake and adherence amongst patients. 

• Support programs can alleviate caregiver burden and boost engagement: Supplementing treatments with programs such as AI platforms to track prescriptions, nurse helplines to spread out responsibility, and transportation reimbursements to relieve financial and logistical strains can drive up caregiver satisfaction and patient adherence. 

• Capturing caregiver needs can improve product alignment with value-based pricing: By incorporating patient and caregiver perspectives early on to refine product development, companies can generate products with a positive impact in clinical and real-life contexts, justifying higher price points under value-based pricing frameworks. 

• Caregiver and patient segmentation can drive up product performance: Target patient populations and their caregivers are diverse, with varied technical training, bandwidth, socioeconomic status, and cultural practices. Accounting for this segmentation can inform a more targeted, multi-tier marketing strategy that is both engaging and relevant to each group.  

  
  

Given the undeniable role that caregivers play in patients’ lives, capturing their experiences can offer invaluable insights into drug development and launch. 

Case in Point: Spinnaker’s Take on Inclusive Journey Mapping

Spinnaker recently partnered with a leading biopharmaceutical company to conduct primary market research for a novel atopic dermatitis product. While the company was interested in physician perception of their asset, Spinnaker highlighted the importance of including the perspectives of the patient and the caregiver to drive commercial success. 

One of our key insights was the discovery that end-points selected during trial design were overly clinical, measuring success on indications that were low-priority for parents. Instead, caregivers were more interested in understanding how the product performed on other criteria such as improving sleeping patterns, reducing scratching tendencies, and increasing engagement in familial activities. Including endpoints that address caregiver priorities can strengthen regulatory labelling and marketing messaging, presenting a more compelling product to patients and caregivers.  

One of our key insights was the discovery that end-points selected during trial design were overly clinical, measuring success on indications that were low-priority for parents. Instead, caregivers were more interested in understanding how the product performed on other criteria...

Another area of interest for the company was understanding whether the product’s profile as a natural alternative to standard-of-care steroids was attractive to stakeholders. While this may carry less weight with HCPs, the perceived safety of a natural derivative can be very meaningful to caregivers. Spinnaker presented a primary market research plan for how the company could capture parental perceptions of the product’s natural content and safety profile. Centering caregiver voices in this way can help inform product positioning and sales messaging, highlighting product features that matter not only to physicians, but to patients and their caregivers.  

Centering caregiver voices in this way can help inform product positioning and sales messaging, highlighting product features that matter not only to physicians, but to patients and their caregivers. 

The View from the Crow’s Nest

In preparation for commercial launch, companies should prioritize patient and caregiver perspectives to identify the most compelling market positioning and messaging. Patient journey mapping is an invaluable tool to discover the lived realities of not just patients, but their caregivers in navigating healthcare spaces and systems.

By improving current practices in patient journey mapping to be more representative, and incorporating caregiver perspectives into these maps early on, companies can humanize their asset development, trial design, product launch, and marketing strategies. In doing so, companies can better understand and cater to the very needs of those who directly engage and benefit from their products, improving patient satisfaction and commercial success.  

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If you are interested in learning more, get in touch at strategy@spinnakerLS.com. 

Spinnaker offers true partnership and comprehensive guidance to help leaders navigate the complexities of the Life Sciences industry and chart a path to success. From early-stage market assessment through commercial execution and ongoing lifecycle management, we deliver tailored solutions to ensure optimized practicable results.

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Sources:

1. Journal of Advanced Nursing. Reporting and conducting patient journey mapping research in healthcare: A scoping review. 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36330555/ 

2. European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing. Patient journey mapping: emerging methods for understanding and improving patient experiences of health systems and services. 2024. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38306596/ 

3. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health. Mapping the Patient’s Journey in Healthcare through Process Mining. 2020. https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/18/6586 

4. Advances in Therapy. A Narrative Review of the Patient Journey Through the Lens of Non-communicable Diseases in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. 2020. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33052560/ 

5. BMC Health Services Research. Journey mapping as a novel approach to healthcare: a qualitative mixed methods study in palliative care. 2021. https://bmchealthservres.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12913-021-06934-y 

6. American Association of Retired Persons. New Report Reveals Crisis Point for America’s 63 million Family Caregivers. 2025. https://press.aarp.org/2025-07-24-New-Report-Reveals-Crisis-Point-for-Americas-63-million-Family-Caregivers