Management approach

We provide therapies that save and enhance patient lives. While research shows that patients do better when they have support from others, we understand that too often, patients do not have a say in the administration of cardiovascular procedures. By listening to patients, we can develop products and services that meet their individual needs. We endeavor to improve the quality of care for patients worldwide by listening to the patients’ own experiences and by leveraging technology, clinical evidence and innovative solutions.

Our global Patient Engagement function’s main goals are to understand unmet needs along the patient journey and improve the patient experience by supporting advocacy efforts and through patient outreach. By elevating the patient voice and highlighting what matters most to patients, we endeavor to enhance global policy and remove barriers to care. We do this through a variety of activities and engagements, which include convening patient listening sessions with our employees, conducting patient preference research, supporting patient advocacy groups, and collaborating with external partners to advance patient engagement within the medical technology industry.

Our global Patient Engagement team creates opportunities to better incorporate the patient perspective into our business strategy and enable meaningful patient-driven innovation. They do this by authentically empowering patients, advocates and healthcare stakeholders to expand access to treatments and transform quality of life for patients. To align the whole organization with the goals of this function, our CEO has a performance management objective to facilitate employee exposure and interaction with patients, which contributes to our patient-focused corporate culture.

Amplifying the patient voice through partnerships

When patients share their experiences, they inspire others to speak up and support each other. We believe patient advocacy groups are a vital stakeholder group in the endeavor to understand and improve the care cycle, and we are proud to support such organizations through grants, sponsorships, and charitable contributions. We have a set of global guiding principles that establish how and why we work with patient organizations to ensure any collaboration is both productive and ethical. These principles establish our expectation for transparent relationships.

Edwards supports patient organizations around the world because they are uniquely positioned to provide much-needed assistance to patients. Whether the patient organization provides disease awareness and public education, advocacy on policy initiatives, peer-to-peer training and support, insights into the patient perspective, or efforts to educate and empower patients to advocate on their own behalf, we are proud to support their efforts to advance people’s health and quality of life. Below are a few examples of the types of programs supported by Edwards.

• Edwards supports the patient voice through our engagement with  Heart Valve Voice U.S., a patient-led non-profit focused on improving the diagnosis, treatment, and management of heart valve disease. We are currently supporting the organization’s #Ask4Echo education campaign, which empowers patients and health care professionals to start the conversation about heart valve disease at the onset of certain symptoms. Heart Valve Voice U.S. is an affiliate of Global Heart Hub, which Edwards also supports, the first global non-profit patient organization federation aiming to create a unified global voice for those living with or affected by heart disease
• Mended Hearts Program is one of the longest-running peer-support programs for patients who have cardiovascular disease, their caregivers, and families. Accredited and trained volunteers annually make more than 200,000 connections to listen and share information about living with heart disease from the perspective of someone who understands, because they have experienced it.

The Edwards Lifesciences Foundation also supports patient organizations and their charitable activities. For more information about the organizations the Foundation supports, please visit our Foundation page on our website.

The Patient Experience

The annual Patient Experience events, which we host in 11 countries, are important components of Edwards’ patient-focused culture. During the events, we welcome patients and their care partners to our facilities to create and strengthen impactful connections between patients, employees and external partners. These touchpoints provide our teams with important insights into the patient journey, from symptoms and diagnosis through treatment and recovery, to help us better understand what patients are experiencing. Facilitating communication between employees and patients reminds our team of the importance of our work and provides patients with the opportunity to meet the individuals behind their lifesaving devices and forge connections with other patients and patient advocacy groups. By cultivating a community of patients who want to stay informed and share their experiences with others, together we are improving the lives of people living with heart valve disease.

Patient resources

We are continually looking for new avenues through which we can help individuals understand their symptoms and have informed conversations with their doctors. One way we do this is by providing easily accessible and understandable information on heart valve disease and treatment options.

As part of our efforts to provide patients with support in navigating their care journey, in 2020 we launched the Edwards Patient Support Center (PSC). The PSC provides an opportunity for patients to ask questions prior to treatment and post-procedure care and receive education and information from trained Edwards employees. Through our engagement with those utilizing the Patient Support Center, we also strengthen our knowledge about the patient experience. Since its launch, we have seen increasing engagement with the PSC every quarter. 

Another way we gather feedback from patients is by conducting patient preference surveys. Through these surveys, we aim to understand the patient experience at each step of their treatment journey. We take the feedback gathered and use it as an input to our product development process.

While the patient preference surveys focus on understanding the patient perspective, we also proactively engage with the hospitals where Edwards’ products are used through customer satisfaction surveys. Historically, we conducted a biennial customer satisfaction survey, but in 2022 we began the implementation of a new platform which we will use to collect customer feedback on an ongoing basis.

Product design and development

We strive to incorporate patient input into every stage of our product development process. By intentionally capturing patient input, we can design our devices to provide care that addresses patient needs and improves their post-procedure quality of life. These efforts align with our Aspiration to ensure that our therapies are addressing the needs of patients through an increasingly collaborative patient engagement process.

One example of how we have collected and analyzed quantitative data to assess the relative importance and value of products from the perspective of our patient community include a study of U.S. patient preferences. This study considered the process patients go through when choosing from possible aortic stenosis treatments, taking into account the risk-benefit analysis patients conduct when choosing between two types of valve replacements. We also completed a study designed to quantify patients’ preferences for the two main options for treating degenerative mitral regurgitation: open heart surgical repair or a beating-heart surgical approach.