COVID-19 in Latin America – Fine Panel HCP survey suggests more critical cases have a dominant focus in people with previous pathologies

ESOMAR includes Fine Research as an example of response to COVID-19 crisis

Amsterdam, April 1, 2020

ESOMAR issued an statement named The role of Data, Research and Insights community in supporting global crisis and post-crisis management of Covid19 measures.

It included a number of relevant recommendations and detailed a few examples of members who, be they large globally renowned agencies or local boutique agencies, are working tirelessly to increase insight and understanding of how the world around is being changed by the Covid19 outbreak. This research is, and will be, invaluable to facilitate and enable government and business leaders to evaluate and take effective decisions that strengthen public trust and confidence, overcome the crisis as quickly as possible, and reboot our economies.

Those examples included the 7 selected cases of actions taken by Ipsos, YouGov, Kantar, GfK, KASI, PEW , and Fine Research.

Regarding FINE, the satement details as follows:

Supporting Latin American healthcare systems with intelligence and insights

FINE Research is a leading independent data collection company in Latin America. It runs several panels which address healthcare professionals in Latin America and as a result is well placed to support the health care profession in these countries as they prepare for the Covid-19 pandemic progress through the region.

FINE Research has been using its evidence-based medicine information tool, mailing capabilities and survey community platform, to provide updated information on COVID-19 to the Healthcare community. It has offered free of charge research for any initiative coming from public ministries of these countries in order to ensure that health-care professionals are taking decisions to prepare for and mitigate the impact of the Covid-19 on Latin American healthcare care

FINE Research runs and funds an ongoing COVID-19 Monitor, with a first wave run on nearly 1000 physicians in 4 Latin American countries (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina) specifically on the status of the healthcare system itself to determine what should be the action plan for decision-makers.

The research identified that a focus is needed on improving hospital infrastructure and citizen awareness of the symptoms and prevention strategies, establishes evidence of a probable underreporting of diagnoses of Covid-19 showing the need of an urgent expansion of the testing capability, and a higher physician support of policies in countries looking to implement strict lockdown measures to contain the spread of the virus.

The full statement is available here

COVID-19: Evidence and Insights about the COVID-19 impact in Latin America

ESPAÑOL               PORTUGUÊS                FULL REPORT                 WEBINAR

June 28, 2020

While the pandemic seems to have gone beyond the peek in many European countries and most of the restrictions have been relaxed, the situation is becoming increasingly worrying in Latin America.

WHO reported by the end of May that for the first time this region concentrated the largest number of new daily cases, outpacing the US and Europe. Brazil only is today the second country globally in terms of total infections.

Two months before the pandemic outbreak in Wuhan, at Fine Research we asked doctors in Latin America and in the US about how prepared these countries were to face an epidemic. In the light of what we know today, results became not only truly shocking but also tragically prophetic, confirming the ill-preparation that was already evident for most of the physicians across the Americas.

With the start of the pandemic, FINE, decided to start a series of projects on COVID-19. The objective of that program was to make available its research capabilities and the online physician survey platform to support the public, the medical community, institutions, companies and the health authorities with evidence and insights useful against the pandemic.

The initiative that was financed internally by FINE included conducting more than 10,000 interviews with health professionals in 16 Latin American countries.

The initiative was designed as an open and collaborative work so while it has been overall sponsored by the ESOMAR Foundation and Save The Children, have also received contributions from many companies and organizations. The list include: Confirmit, Delvinia, EBSCO HEALTH/DynaMed, Datum, Ipsos, Observatorio 87, PBG, Provokers, Unilever, The Pharmaceutical Marketing Group, YOUNIVERSAL, DIMM Magazine, Brazilian Association of Research companies (ABEP) and of individual researchers (ASBPM) as well as ESOMAR.

Toluna and Reckner Healthcare have supported the pre-pandemic survey, and M3 Global have brought on board an interesting global project for the Birmingham University aimed to improve COVID-19 testing which we included in this pro-bono program.

The topics were grouped into four main axes: evidence around COVID-19, assessment of public policies, insights about the impact in the medical practice and future post-pandemic scenarios.

Some of the key lessons have been:

1. By late May the region was polarized between those HCPs who believe that restrictions should be relaxed in a gradual and controlled manner and those who think that controls should be maintained or tightened.

2. The number of COVID-19 patients reported in the survey is line with public information reported by WHO, confirming that by late May, most affected countries were Brazil, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Panama and Chile. However, evidence of suspicious cases and testing suggests high levels of underreporting, particularly  in Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Mexico and Panama. While tests are considered reliable, they are not enough. Thus, in most countries are not even covering patients at risks and with symptoms. Tests are also taking significant processing time for adequate diagnosis and screening of the network of infected contacts. If in the US and Europe, processing times of test are around 1-2 days, in LatAm the average is 4 days.

3. By late May most doctors saw Peru’s hospital resources as already collapsed, including the availability of hospitalization beds, IT areas and respirators. In Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil and Venezuela these resources were perceived as having a high short-term risk of collapse.

4. Despite the limitations of the hospital infrastructure, in most countries the LatAm region has improved it, compared to the results seen in March, with the significant exception of Brazil.

5 The majority of hospitalized patients have been people showing pre-existent pathologies, particularly Diabetes, Cardiological diseases or respiratory diseases.

6. In all countries, there is an abrupt drop in patients seen in general by HCPs, significantly affecting adherence in all kinds of diseases, including potential life threatening diseases such as Cancer, HIV, Diabetes, respiratory, cardiological or autoimmune diseases.

7. The main perceived risks for the doctors are associated with the lack of protective material and lack of protocols. Doctors need clear training not only for the treatment of COVID-19 and the use of protective equipment, but also for the care of all types of patients, whether in hospital, office or virtual.

8. The pandemic has emotionally affected doctors, and the vast majority say they suffer from one or more of the following effects: fear of infection, anxiety, tiredness, difficulty sleeping, isolation, anguish, uncertainty, or irritability.

9. Those who are in the front line are especially affected by fear of family and personal infection, pressure from the work environment, and fatigue.

10. The imagined post-pandemic future will imply an important impact on the physical and emotional health of the population, as well as a profound transformation of the health ecosystem and the modalities of medical care, with new protocols and an increased use of telemedicine.

The program is working in updating the evidence so please free to reach out if you have any relevant ideas or contributions to support this program at info@fine-research.com

Click here to access the full report

You can also access our On-Demand webinar free of charge around current medical practice:

Critical challenges that Physicians are facing during the Pandemic ‎

 PRESS REGARDING THE PROGRAM

Looking Inside The Digital Qual ToolBox

With the COVID-19 restriction on in person research, digi-qual is certainly booming but what if you had a set of guidelines to make sure you get tthe most of these tools to leverage the qualitative revolution?

With the purpose to provide researcher such a toolbox Garnette Weber (I-tracks Canada) jointly with Dalila Antonacachi (Fine Argentina) and Claudia Mota (Fine Brazil) co-presented a  complete paper at ESOMAR LATAM 2019 in Sao Paulo, with tips to  run communities, virtual focus groups, video based online IDs, or TDIs with screen share.

VIEW ARTICLE

Fine becomes first LatAm agency that wins an AIR – Achievement in Insight and Research Award

London, UK, Oslo, Norway, and New York, NY – 10 September 2019: Confirmit today announced the winners of the 2019 AIR (Achievement in Insight and Research) Awards. The AIR Awards were created to recognise Confirmit customers who are driving the Market Research industry forward by demonstrating innovation and excellence to enhance business performance.

Ken Østreng, CEO at Confirmit, says of the programme: “Great research is at the heart of business decision making. We are delighted to recognise the people and businesses whose dedication to innovation and insight are driving the Market Research industry forward. Congratulations to all our winners, we are proud to be part of your stories.”

Diego Casaravilla, CEO of Fine Research said: “Thank you to Confirmit for this wonderful recognition which is a great motivation for the FINE team to continue working towards excellence. We are particularly proud to be the first Latin American company to have won an AIR award. We are also very excited to be recognised as a Judges’ Choice winner in the Project and Innovation category.”

The judges were Kristin Luck, Founder of ScaleHouse, Dangjaithawin Anantachai, Managing Director, INTAGE Thailand, and Vanessa Oshima, Founder and President of Heart Data inc.

SEE FULL PRESS RELEASE

In the picture Emilia Gomez from FINE ARGENTINA  and Flavia Abe from FINE BRAZIL receiving the prize at the Confirmit booth in Edinburgh at the 2019 Esomar Annual Conference

Fine Panel offers latest updates on Evidence Based Medicine for free to all Latin American Physicians

August, 2019.

Fine Research has signed an agreement with EBSCO Health that enables offering free of charge to all LatAm health professionals an advanced tool for professional updating in evidence-based medicine.

It includes therapeutic recommendations based on latest evidence, medical calculators and permanent updates of medical news in the different specialties.

Panel Members get access to a tool aimed exclusively at health professionals, curated by renowned international specialists working in institutions such as Cochrane Center, Leiden University Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, University of Massachusetts Medical School, and with the collaboration of the American College of Physicians.

DynaMed is currently used by leading regional institutions such as the Ministry of Health of Brazil, the Mexican Social Security Institute, the Cardiovascular Foundation of Colombia or Garraham Hospital in Argentina.

To access DynaMed, the health professional community can do so simply by entering through the Fine Panel app, accessible through Google Play and Apple Store.

In the context of COVID-19 outbreak, an open access to this topic can be seen at the link below

https://www.dynamed.com/condition/covid-19-novel-coronavirus

We are confident that this development will contribute to the professional enhancement  of our community of health practitioners throughout Latin America.

In addittion it also supports to create a positive engagement with qual and online research participants who receive a relevant professional benefit for being part of our panel community.

We currently have thousands of doctors actively using the app in Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Colombia

Fine Research Privacy Notice

PRIVACY NOTICE INTRODUCTION

 At Fine Research, we recognize the importance of protecting your personal information and undertake to process it responsibly and in accordance with the data protection laws applicable in all countries in which we operate. In the normal course of its business activities, Fine Research using its own name or its registered trademark Fine Panel, collects, uses and sometimes shares information to perform its daily operations. This Privacy Notice describes the general privacy practices of Fine Research that apply to the collection and use of such personal information.

TYPES OF PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

In describing our collection, use and exchange of information in this Notice, we refer to our collection and use of “Personal Information.” “Personal information” as used in this notice is any information related to an identified or identifiable individual. Examples of personal information include first and last name, postal address, email address, payment information, IP address, other online contact information or telephone number. We collect the information you voluntarily provide on the application forms on our site, as responses to the surveys we run and / or we may obtain information, including personal information, from third-party sources that comply with this privacy notice and / or from public websites. The personal data of the participating respondents will not be shared in any way with third parties other than internal employees or hired suppliers working on research tasks, nor will they be linked to their responses in any of the surveys carried out. The only exception to this rule is in cases of public health in which is a plausible report of a health adverse event (AE) , and only in cases where respondents have previously agreed to share their data. Your data can be transferred internationally to the different offices that are part of the Fine Research network, including subsidiaries of Fine do Brazil Pesquisas Ltda, Fine Research SRL (Argentina), FR Research SA de CV (Mexico), Fine Research Latinoamerica SA Sucursal Colombia and Fine Research Latin America SA (Uruguay) We only use personal data to: – invite respondents to access our available surveys – give them access evidence-based medical content tools – verify the validity of the identities and prevent fraud – process rewards for participation – provide warnings to researchers involved in Adverse Events (AE) and expressly set forth in this Notice – to maintain business operations, as with the suppliers that work on our behalf and ensure that they adhere to the same practices as this privacy notice. – as required by law or to respond to the legal process – to develop business relationships with its clients, prospects and suppliers with whom we have a legitimate interest to interact – in other cases with the express consent If there is a need to use your data for a secondary purpose, we will provide you with a Notice of such use. If you have questions or need more information on the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, contact us at info@fine-research.com We do not share your personal information with third parties, except as indicated in this document.

WHERE WE STORE AND PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Personal data collected by Fine Research is stored in US Secure storage facilities within Forsta INC and Amazon Web Services. Storage locations are chosen to operate efficiently, improve performance and create redundancies to protect data in the event of a failure or other problem. We take steps to ensure that the data we collect under this Notice is processed in accordance with the provisions of this Notice and the requirements of applicable law, wherever the data is located.

Fine Research complies with the General Law on Data Protection, LGPD and GDPR regarding the collection, use and retention of personal information collected in  Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Dom Republic, Uruguay,  the European Union and/or the United States.

HOW WE GUARANTEE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Fine Research uses a variety of technologies to effectively protect your personal data from unauthorized access, use or disclosure. While we implement safeguards designed to protect your information, we know that no security system is impenetrable due to the inherent nature of the Internet, but we will always use reasonable and adequate security procedures.

HOW LONG WILL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION RETAIN

We will retain the personal information we collect from you when there is an ongoing legitimate business need (for example, to provide a service you have requested or to comply with applicable legal, tax or accounting requirements). When we do not have a legitimate business need in progress to process your personal information, we will delete or anonymize your data or, if that is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup files), then we will securely store the personal information and isolate it from any further processing until it is possible to delete it.

HOW TO ACCESS AND CONTROL YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

You can exercise your rights by contacting us at info@fine-research.com We respond to all requests we receive from people who wish to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.

UNSUSCRIBE NOTICE

You can choose not to receive contacts by clicking “Unsubscribe” at the bottom of the email that received the invitations. HOW

TO CONTACT US

To exercise the rights of your stakeholders, contact us at info@fine-research.com

Argentina Data Protection Officer (Fine Research SRL) – Fabiola Suarez

Brazil Data Protection Officer (Fine do Brasil Pesquisas Ltda) – Sandra Miranda

Colombia Data Protection Officer (Fine Research Lationamerica Sucursal Colombia) – Sonia Castro 

Mexico Data Protection Officer (FR Research Sa de CV) – Alberto Rosas 

Other countries – (Fine Research Latin America SA) – Regional Data Protection Officer – Diego Casaravilla

Tips and Tricks for Healthcare Research in LatAm

Originally Published At EphMRA, June 2019

Latin America is a diverse region, which includes 20 independent countries as well as many other smaller jurisdictions, Spanish and Portuguese being the dominant languages. Its population of over 600 million inhabitants represents 9% of the world population.

The number of physicians living in this region exceeds a million drug prescribers and its healthcare expenditure is estimated to be over 400 billion USD. (1)

Furthermore, if we consider LATAM as a single territory – as it is often simplified externally – this expenditure would make it the 4th largest after the US, China and Japan, and surprisingly larger than certain developed individual markets, such as Germany, the UK or France.

Meanwhile, according to the same data Brazil, which stands globally as the 7th largest market, represents 50% of the LATAM business; and by including Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Chile, you cover 5/6 of the total regional healthcare expenditure.

In addition to its size, the growth trend is also quite strong. The same WHO data shows a robust increase of healthcare expenditure of almost 7% annually, between the years 2000 and 2016, which resulted in an impressive triplication of this revenue!

Research investment, however, is lagging somewhat behind this trend. The latest ESOMAR Global Market Research report estimates that the LATAM regional shares a mere 3% of global turnover.(2)

While there is no reliable data available for healthcare research specifically, our own estimates suggest a similar figure.

Therefore, this inconsistency is probably hiding a large market opportunity and sooner or later market intelligence budgets will align closer, not just to LATAM “future potential”, but also to the extent of the actual size of its marketplace.

The good news is that research methods used globally work generally well in LATAM and virtually all targets, such as doctors, nurses, patients or even payers are accessible. For qualitative projects, generally IDIs or TDIs can be run in a similar fashion as in Europe, although it is advisable to run them in the relevant local languages.

Digital qual, such as online communities, is also starting to emerge. Online research is generally well accepted. Based on our internal data we know that roughly 10% of the doctors in the main markets (i.e. Brazil, Mexico, Colombia and Argentina) have participated in one of our surveys, but the situation can be tricky in smaller markets, such as Chile, Peru or Central America, in which tiny universes imply the need for extensive ad hoc, and even f2f, interviewing.

We recently published “Future of Healthcare in Latin America”, (3) a large-scale prospective study showing that physicians are generally tough critics of their own systems in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, while Argentineans and Chileans showed more moderate views.

The main differences with their US peers are not so much their perceptions of the quality of private clinics or insurance plans (in which the ratings are similar and relatively positive), but rather the assessment of the overall healthcare coverage and, more specifically, in the quality of public hospitals.

According to LATAM doctors the most severe hurdles that patients face, which affect a majority of the population, are:

• Limited access to medicines due to high costs and/or bureaucratic access barriers;

• Lack of approval of drugs that would be the best treatment option;

• Lack of available equipment and materials;

• Limited time available for proper consultation and difficult access to specialists.

Thinking about their prospects, on the bright side, doctors imagine a future positively lead by technological improvement and better informed patients. On the dark side, they envision further restricted access to treatments and that the role of the doctor will be increasingly challenged in the healthcare process.

Moreover, they fear they will feel a decline in respect, remuneration and working conditions. The technologies that doctors anticipate will make the most significant impact in this presumed future are preventive medicines, new vaccines, immunotherapy, usage of genetically adjusted drugs, genetic engineering and biologics.

Thus, while there are definitely some tensions in this diverse region’s healthcare landscape, Latin America stands as a solidly growing area with positive prospects for both pharma marketers and researchers. Those who can get a deep understanding of the region – by investing in widely accessible research tools – and provide effective business solutions, will be better prepared to seize these opportunities.

Diego Casaravilla is CEO of Fine Research, an agency specialised in healthcare qual and online data collection, with own operations in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Argentina and Uruguay.

References

1.WHO. (2019). Global Health Expenditure Database. http://apps.who.int/nha/ database/ViewData/Indicators/en

2. ESOMAR. (2018). Global Market Research 2018: An ESOMAR Industry Report. Amsterdam: ESOMAR, pp. 10

3. Fine Research. (2018). Future of Healthcare in Latin America. Full report available: https://www.fine-research.com/blog/news

Check the full article!

FINE launches Patient Panel

As the leading regional healthcare panel with over 90,000 opt-in professionals, we have made a step forward to respond to the increasing demands for patient centricity.

Our panel cover patients with conditions that are hardly reached by other means including (among others):

• Multiple Sclerosis
• HIV
• Hep C
• Psoriasis
• Chron
• Asthma
• COPD
• Hemophilia
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Solid Cancer
• Leukemia
• Multiple Myeloma
• Diabetes

The recruiting strategy combines a proprietary specialized online panel with supplementary ad hoc approaches as needed (i.e. patient association agreements, hospital and clinics on-site recruiting, social media, professional and peer referrals).

The patient panel is strongly focused on Brazil, while in Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Peru we are mainly working based on an ad hoc recruiting strategy and have started building local panel capabilities.

For more details please write to Fabiola Suarez, our patient specialist at:

<fabiola.suarez@fine-research.com>

FINE`s CEO appointed Programme Committee Chair for ESOMAR LatAm 2019

As a long term supporter of ESOMAR Latin American events, we are happy to have been part of the Esomar conference held in São Paulo, Brazil on April 7-9th, 2019.

This market intelligence festival featured business insights, innovative methodologies, big data driven strategies, customer centric approaches, and the latest research technology.

As a company that endorses ESOMAR´s values, we are particularly proud that our CEO, Diego Casaravilla, has participated as Programme Committee Chair for this edition, also cordinating several panels with the participation of Coca Cola, Facebook, Fox, Oi Brasil and Clarin Newspaper

As in previous years this festival had been a landmark in the region for good quality research.