Patient experience & voice

Sustainability report

Edwards Lifesciences’ work to improve Patient Experience and Voice supports our aspiration of transforming patient lives with breakthrough medical technologies.

Definition

Continuously improving the patient experience with products developed with feedback and input from patients while empowering patients to support and aid each other.

Management approach
Annual performance

Management approach

Edwards Lifesciences focuses on providing patient-centric innovations that save and enhance patient lives. We understand that too often patients do not have influence over the diagnosis of their condition, the type of treatment they receive or how their care is delivered. We work to incorporate patients’ input into the development of our products. By listening to patients and capturing their input through both qualitative and quantitative methods, we can provide care that meets individual needs and preferences.

The Vice President of Patient Engagement is responsible for ensuring that all patient engagement activities are aligned with our Aspirations to transform patient care through innovative technologies and to attract and engage talented employees. Our global Patient Engagement team designs activities to better incorporate the patient perspective into our business strategy. We enable meaningful patient-driven innovation by authentically empowering patients, advocates and healthcare stakeholders to widen access to treatments and transform quality of life.

Our work in this area aligns to SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being, in particular sub-target 3.4: by 2030, reduce by one third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.

Growing the patient voice through partnerships

When patients use their voices, they do more than advocate for themselves—they inspire others to speak up and support each other in working toward healthier outcomes. We believe in the work undertaken by patient advocacy groups and we are proud to support those organizations through resource sharing and charitable contributions. Edwards Lifesciences Foundation provides charitable grants to the American Heart Association for their Heart Valve Ambassador Program, which connects heart valve patients to a group of dedicated individuals who offer resources and support, as well as the Heart Valve Education Center, where patients can connect with and learn from other patients. Our Foundation also supports Heart Valve Voice – a patient-focused advocacy organization that collects and shares patient stories and advocates on behalf of patients’ interests. This global program reaches patients in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Italy and France. Other patient advocacy programs the Foundation supports include:

Mended Hearts Trained Accredited Patient Visitor Program
Mended Hearts Peer Advocate program
WomenHeart: National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease and Heart Champions program
Patient Advocate Foundation’s Heart Valve CareLine and Financial Aid Fund

The Patient Experience

The experience for those suffering from cardiovascular disease remains complex and filled with obstacles. The treatment process can be inconsistent from one patient to the next. Our annual Patient Experience event brings together patients and caregivers in multiple Edwards locations around the world to connect and share their experiences with our employees and other patients. Through this program, Edwards gains important insights into the patient journey, from symptoms and diagnosis through treatment and recovery, as well as the patient concerns and challenges along the way. This input helps us identify opportunities to address gaps in care, and guides our efforts to develop tools, support resources and programs to improve patient access, experience and outcomes.

Evidence indicates that empowered, engaged patients experience better clinical outcomes. For this reason, Edwards’ Patient Engagement function maintains and consistently updates an approach to empowering patients, including sponsoring patient listening sessions, conducting Science of Patient Input (SPI) studies, supporting patient advocacy groups that represent the patient’s voice and helping patients exercise their voices to improve the healthcare system. This approach supports our goal to ensure that our therapies are addressing the needs of patients through an increasingly collaborative patient engagement process. This goal aligns to SDG 3: Good Health & Well-Being.

Addressing patient needs and connection along the journey to heart health

Edwards strives to ensure all patients have a voice in shaping their treatment experience, and we recognize that many patients benefit from minimally invasive procedures. To increase access to minimally invasive procedures, Edwards drives innovation in Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) technology. TAVR allows physicians to replace heart valves with a catheter instead of surgically opening the chest. To learn more about patient experiences with Edwards’ heart valves, browse our collection of patient stories.

Our industry-leading Edwards PatientConnect program offers dedicated care managers and peer ambassadors who support and help patients navigate through what can be an overwhelming, arduous pathway from pre-treatment through recovery. Additionally, our TAVR Patient Community Program supports patients post-procedure with educational materials, resources and opportunities to participate in peer support, outreach and advocacy. This unique program helps support TAVR patients along their journey to heart health and enables them to connect with other patients and get involved in improving the experience for future valve patients.

Edwards places a priority on gathering patient insights across the total product lifecycle, so we invest in patient preference studies among various patient groups to determine the benefit-risk tolerance for new therapies. Using qualitative and quantitative methods, Edwards ensures the patient voice is heard from development to commercialization of new technologies.

Patient resources

Edwards believes informed patients have a more successful treatment experience. Our website offers information on heart valve disease and treatment, as well as FAQs and a glossary of terminology. Additionally, our NewHeartValve website provides comprehensive information on aortic stenosis and options for treatment. Our Foundation also invests in educational resources for patients with Mended Hearts, the American Heart Association and with the Alliance for Aging Research Foundation.

Annual performance

Patient engagement and events

Listening to patients inspires us and drives improvement in our patient engagement initiatives. In 2019, our Patient Engagement team focused on globalizing the Patient Experience events to bring opportunities for patient interaction to all Edwards employees, including our field teams. For example, we provided nearly 5,000 employees the opportunity to have an in-person engagement with a patient. Through our Patient Experience program, more than 150 patients and guests shared their stories with approximately 2,600 Edwards employees at seven global locations. This included a first-ever Patient Experience event at our Ireland, Costa Rica, Japan and Singapore locations. In addition, we hosted patient speakers at additional Edwards meetings, such as sales meetings and regional leadership summits, to reinforce and strengthen our patient-focused culture. Edwards’ Patient Engagement team plans to hold annual patient interactions globally in all Edwards offices with more than 50 employees.

Consistently embedding patient focus across Edwards

As Edwards continues to grow our business and expand across the globe, we consider it a top priority to maintain a consistent patient-centric culture. To do so, in 2019, our Patient Engagement team began developing training modules that provide employees participating in patient interactions with general guidelines and tips for creating a positive experience for all. We recognize that patient engagement provides a powerful sense of purpose in our work for many of Edwards’ employees, and we continue to prioritize facilitating these connections.

In addition to maintaining consistency in our patient-focused culture across geographic locations, we also standardize our approach to managing patient engagement from a corporate level. One effort is our newly created Patient Support Center, which acts as a centralized place to collect, organize and address any patient inquiries received by Edwards. This will support the patient experience team in their work to provide recommendations to initiatives around Edwards based on patient feedback or requests. The Center will help ensure we respond to and resolve all patient inquires and provide us with quantifiable metrics to guide improvements in our response time.

Our aspirations

Transforming patient lives with breakthrough medical technologies

Fostering an inclusive culture where all employees grow and thrive

Highlight story

2019 Patient Experience Empowers Patients to Use Their Voice

The Patient Experience is about bringing together people who have benefitted from Edwards Lifesciences technologies, to connect with our teams, with one another, and with patient organizations. We engage an intimate group of patients who share their experience and expertise. Their insights can help Edwards and our partners have an impact on the lives of future patients.

At this event patient attendees:

Learn about heart valve and critical care innovations
Meet Edwards leaders and employees dedicated to serving the patient community
Participate in discussions to help improve the patient-caregiver experience
Tour our manufacturing facility and meet employees who designed or handcrafted the patient’s device
Learn how to get involved and play a role in supporting other patients and caregivers

We hosted dozens of patients and care partners at our global corporate headquarters to connect patients with each other and to share more about the people behind their heart valve technologies and the support services and networks dedicated to the heart community. Visit our Patient Voice site to view highlights from our 2019 event.

Through initiatives led by Edwards and our non-profit partners, we empower patients to use their experience to help themselves and others and to build a community of patients who care about making a difference. We support patient organizations around the world because they are uniquely positioned to provide much-needed services to patients. Whether the organization provides peer-to-peer training and support, disease awareness and public education, insights into the patient perspective, advocacy on policy initiatives, opportunities for our employees to give back to the community, 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.