FCB Health Network has launched YuzuYello, a patient experience-focused offering.
The YuzuYello offering will work across the FCB Health Network agencies, allowing each firm the ability to tap into its services like service design, program development, contact center training, predictive behavior analytics, content strategy and experiential touchpoint creation, said Mike Guarino, chief commercial officer at FCB Health Network.
The network has been working on the launch of YuzuYello for about 10 months, Guarino said. The goal was to formalize a service that the FCB Health Network has been providing for more than a decade, he explained, combining behavioral science expertise with data and empathy “to connect people to brands and experiences to create overall better outcomes for the brands we work on.”
“As we were doing final prep, we got hit with COVID,” Guarino said. “We were ready to launch this service to improve patient outcomes as the world is focused on COVID. At the same time, those people with chronic conditions aren’t going away. Their conditions aren’t improving and they still need to be managed, but these patients’ ability to manage their condition is heightened and made even more complex by access and ability to connect to healthcare providers [during COVID-19]. It was the right time to formalize the launch of this service.”
YuzuYello is structured to work across all of FCB Health Network’s agencies, pulling expertise from each firm to develop and execute these patient support programs. With that combined staff, Guarino said there are about 50 people working on YuzuYello.
Guarino said YuzuYello is already working with clients, though declined to name any specific companies. He said these patient support programs cross disease areas and types of brands.
“Support services is something that sits above the brand,” Guarino said. “It ranges from highly specialized medicine to general medicine and primary care to rare and orphan disease. We also work on both launch brands and inline brands. There doesn’t have to be a huge market for patient support to be important.”
The pandemic has made these programs even more crucial. As patients and doctors move to telemedicine and manage their conditions remotely, these patient support programs are becoming more important to a full brand experience and for patients.
“The level of stress patients feel impacts their ability to have great experience and great outcome on the brand,” Guarino said. “That’s always been something that’s existed, but in this COVID world, it’s as if you’ve put a giant magnifying glass on it. All those support structures, the ability to talk to a pharmacist, talk to a nurse practitioner at the office or talk to their physician, all of that is more complicated because those avenues have roadblocks now. That has left patients sitting alone on an island, trying to figure out what they need. These support services make sure no one is an island.”
