When Facts Fail: Truth and Storytelling in Health Communication

Background:  DaVita, a large dialysis care provider, created DaVita Rx in 2005 to provide its patients with a pharmacy service specializing in renal care. An independent study of 50,000 DaVita dialysis patients, published by the American Journal of Kidney Diseases in 2012, found that DaVita patients who used DaVita Rx services had better clinical outcomes, including lower rates of death and hospitalization. However, despite data confirming that their service improved patient quality of life, DaVita Rx found that the data did not significantly increase patient enrollment in their service. 

Program background:  DaVita Rx asked Act3 to help communicate the benefits of their service with patients and clinic partners, including physicians, dietitians, and social workers. Since the data alone had not increased enrollment as much as desired, they hoped to put a face on that data, and put that data in context, to speak to the audience’s hearts as well as their heads. The objective was to tell patient stories that would create empathy in viewers, help viewers better understand the process and benefits of the DaVita Rx service, and encourage viewers to either adopt the service, or in the case of clinic partners, encourage patients to adopt it.

Evaluation Methods and Results:  Act3 worked with DaVita Rx to identify two patients who would agree to tell their stories on film. Act3 then interviewed each patient for a full day, discussing with them the role of dialysis and use of the DaVita Rx service in their health maintenance, and its impact on their quality of life. Act3 produced a short film about each patient: “Karen’s Story,” online at http://bit.ly/DaVitaRx_KarensStory, and “Turning Points,” online at http://bit.ly/TurningPoints. These films were shown to patients and clinicians, in multiple settings. Response from both audience segments was overwhelmingly positive. Patients saw someone to whom they could relate speaking positively about their experience with the service, and were often willing to reconsider enrollment. Clinicians gained empathy into the lives of patients and a new perspective on how DaVita Rx service could help them help patients maintain better quality of life, and thus a greater willingness to encourage patient enrollment.

Conclusions:  While DaVita Rx had compelling research data validating the value of its service, many patients and clinicians still were not swayed. Storytelling proved effective in persuading patients and clinicians to adopt behavior that can lead to decreased morbidity and hospitalization and increased quality of life. Inspired by the results, DaVita Rx plans to continue to use storytelling in their communication efforts with patients and clinicians.

Implications for research and/or practice:  The success of this effort underscores the value of telling personal stories as a means to complement factual evidence, and serves as a reminder to health communicators that facts alone often are not enough to change behavior in their target audience.