“Over 60% of consumers now expect their digital health experience to match their retail experience.” In other words, seamless, responsive, and intuitive.
A digital engagement strategy in healthcare can no longer be considered a “nice to have”; it’s the new baseline. In the past 5 years, patients have grown accustomed to the convenience of mobile apps, telehealth, and connected platforms – tools that have proven to expand access, improve adherence, and strengthen long-term loyalty. Yet only a fraction of pharmaceutical players are delivering on this promise, leaving both meaningful health outcomes and business value untapped.
As more and more organizations are adopting digital and AI-driven innovation into their brand plans, owners of traditional patient engagement tactics stand at pivotal crossroads: to bridge clinical innovation with patient experiences, or risk being outpaced by more tech-forward players.
In this article, we’ll explore what top pharma leaders are getting right – and where others are falling behind – while sharing practical insights for building digital programs that meet patients where they are in their health journeys.
What Top Pharma Leaders Are Getting Right
Empathy-First Design
Patient-centricity is the cornerstone of top digital health pharmaceutical programs. Product features designed with an empathy-first approach ensure prioritization of what matters most to patients. When patient experience drives design, adoption naturally follows.
As IQVIA’s Patient Centricity Perspectives 2025 report notes, true patient-centricity means designing with patients, not just for them. Pharma leaders are co-creating UX-tested tools that simplify regimen tracking, symptom reporting, and reminders – shifting from “digital presence” to “digital usefulness.” This mirrors the broader beyond-the-pill movement, where technology extends beyond products to deliver ongoing support.
Integration Across the Care Ecosystem
Digital patient tools cannot exist in silos. The most successful programs integrate across providers, payers, pharmacies, case managers, and support services. This creates a seamless, low-friction experience for patients.
According to McKinsey & Company’s Digital Health Ecosystems: Voice of Key Health Leaders, 90% of survey respondents said patients want integrated care journeys instead of single services, and 86% believe these ecosystems will deliver great economic impact. Such integration reduces redundancy, improves adherence, and strengthens patient trust over time.
Data Driven Personalization
While the majority of pharmaceutical organizations understand the importance of real-world patient data, few are using it to enhance the quality of personalization in their patient programs – a key component in maximizing health outcomes.
By tapping into real-world patient data and combining it with AI-driven insights, the most successful digital patient programs can deliver tailored content, behavioral nudges, and interventions precisely when patients need them.
Insights from IQVIA’s Next-Gen Patient Support: Enhancing the Experience Using Data Driven Personalization show that data-driven personalization is emerging as a “strategic growth lever” for patient support programs, enabling measurement of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as engagement, adherence, and clinical outcomes.
Trust and Compliance as Foundations
Integrating an emphasis on trust and compliance at the core of your digital health platform is crucial to establishing patient trust and ongoing engagement. Top-performing organizations are transparent about how patient data is collected, stored, and protected, while ensuring compliance. This clarity not only fulfills regulatory requirements but also strengthens brand credibility.
A strong example of how compliance and innovation can coexist seamlessly is RxPx’s patient platform. RxPx partnered with a pharma leader to develop a private patient platform to support individuals living with Sickle Cell Disease while assisting them in staying more adherent to therapy. This initiative incorporates patient education, infusion scheduling, reminder systems, community engagement and support, all within a secure, compliant platform that prioritizes patient confidentiality.
This combination of digital support and regulatory integrity has become a benchmark for what modern pharma-backed patient engagement should look like. When patients know their data is being safeguarded to improve their experience and outcomes, participation and adherence follow naturally. In this particular instance, over 6000 patients engaged with the platform with 79% continuing to return regularly once the platform was downloaded.
Where Pharma Leaders are Falling Short
Fragmented Digital Journeys
One of the most common missteps in digital health design is launching isolated tools outside of integrated systems. Separate apps, portals, dashboards, or support platforms that don’t integrate data, user identity, or workflows cause fragmented patient experiences that often result in confusion, frustration and eventual disengagement.
ZS’s report The Promise of Digital Health in Pharma captures this well: many pharmaceutical organizations are stuck in a cycle of “many experiments, little to show”. Too often, digital pilots are launched without the system-wide interoperability required to deliver a seamless experience. Over time, this fragmented approach undermines trust, increases friction, and frustrates users.
Designing for Corporate Metrics vs. Patient Realities
In the rush to “go digital,” the organizations that we see fall short prioritize untested features and tight turnaround times in order to hit internal KPIs. The result? Tools that may look good on paper but fail to engage real patients in practice.
Without patient co-creation and iterative usability testing, digital platforms often miss the mark on accessibility and relevance. For example, patients may log in once and never return, overwhelmed by complexity or underwhelmed by usefulness. The best success we’ve seen is when engagement technology is built with patients as opposed to for patients.
Overemphasis on Tech, Underemphasis on Human Support
The most successful programs are led by pharma organizations that find the right balance between connection and convenience. While automation and self-guided tools enhance accessibility, it’s the human connection that sustains engagement and adherence over time.
The best programs layer human interaction onto digital infrastructure – offering access to live coaching, nurse educators, pharmacists, or help desks alongside a digital experience. This blend of high-tech and high-touch ensures patients receive not just information, but empathy, encouragement, and accountability.
As an example, RxPx patient platforms offer live in-app patient support with Patient Success Managers and Community Managers. These managers foster engagement and discussion while assisting individuals in the navigation of their health journeys via live interaction combined with a digital experience.
Equity Gaps
Digital engagement initiatives cannot be considered patient-centric if they are not designed with inclusivity in mind. Building a platform that offers engagement throughout all relevant milestones across the patient journey guarantees long term relevance and usability.
Further, programs that overlook language diversity, digital literacy, and socioeconomic barriers risk deepening existing disparities in care. A well-intentioned patient portal can quickly become unusable for someone with low health literacy. The result: fragmented adoption and unequal outcomes. When inclusivity is embedded in design, patient engagement expands, adherence improves, and real-world impact follows. RxPx platforms are available in 12 different languages and can be localized across 120+ countries to accommodate all patients within a cohesive, global brand strategy.
Actionable Takeaways For Pharma Leaders
- Co-Create with Patients
Involve patients early in design and usability testing.
- Prioritize Interoperability
Digital tools must connect across systems, EHRs, pharmacies, and provider networks, to deliver seamless, frustration-free experiences and prevent data silos.
- Keep the Human Touch
Automation drives efficiency, but real connection builds trust. Combine digital support with nurse educators, patient success managers or live interactions for better engagement.
- Build for Equity
Design for inclusivity – multilingual options and accessible layouts ensure programs reach all patients.
- Measure and Evolve
Track engagement, adherence, and outcomes continuously and adapt accordingly.
Digital-first success comes from execution with empathy and trust. Pharma teams must blend innovation, integration, and patient insight to build lasting engagement.
Let’s continue the conversation:
Pharma Teams: Are your patient programs truly patient-first or just digitally flashy?
Digital health is not a feature to patient engagement – it must be considered a foundation. When life sciences teams connect clinical innovation with patient experience, the result is stronger adherence, better outcomes, and lasting trust.
RxPx helps pharma organizations turn that vision into reality. Connect with our team to explore how we can develop a fully integrated, compliant support platform tailored to your organization’s needs.
And for our readers, we’d love to hear from you: What do you see as the biggest success or blind spot in digital-first patient care today? Connect with us here.
