Unlocking patient-centred narrative through our interviews

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel

Maya Angelou

But how do you make people feel like a patient?

We might believe we understand the challenges, choices and impacts patients with long-term conditions such as asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, heart failure or even cancer face every day, but we’re probably just scratching the surface.

Signs and symptoms, side effects and physical limitations are all well documented, and we learn to be sympathetic.

But loss of identity, fears for the future, guilt and anger are commonly experienced by patients, as well as the people who love them.

So how does A Life in a Day make people really feel like a patient?

Well, we consult people who are immersed in the condition. People that have unrivalled, in-depth knowledge of what it’s like to live with a long-term condition for every minute of every day. People that experience disease beyond the clinical. That know and understand how it affects you in the middle of the night as well as during an appointment or the middle of the day.

We involve patients at every step of the development process.

Through one-to-one interviews, we build a rapport where people feel safe to share their story and not just the physical or medical aspects, but the raw and sometimes brutal emotional and social impacts.

“When I shared my story with the A Life in a Day team I knew I was really being listened to. No topic was out of bounds; if it was an important part of living with my condition for me, then it was an important part for the programme.” – Patient collaborator

They become all important collaborators in our programmes as they develop, with the creative team regularly sense-checking and confirming details to make sure our representation of their experience is authentic.

We include direct quotes and audio clips, so participants hear the patient voice throughout the experience and can identify with them. There is no greater validation of learning than hearing directly from the person whose life you are living for a day.

“To know that the whole program was built on real patient feedback made the experience even more intense to me”

Participant of A Life in a Day

Driving emotive language for your business

Empathy is the capacity to place yourself in another person’s position, to understand and feel what they experience. The only way to build an experience that offers the opportunity to really immerse yourself in another person’s place is to tell their story, exactly as they do.

The A Life in a Day team is extremely grateful to every patient collaborator who has shared their story to make hard hitting, enlightening and powerful experiences that transforms patient centric thinking in the workplace.