Why Patient Education Gets Lost After the Visit

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0:00 Patients are not sitting down looking for a document. They're looking for answers. If somebody tells me this is a 10-minute video, I'm probably going to say, "Okay, I'll watch it later." But when you're telling somebody, "Hey, this is a a twominut video, you know, if you want to just watch it right now." This is exactly why we did the 3minut cuz it's long enough to teach something meaningful but short enough for patients to say, "I'll watch it now." Physicians want to make sure that whatever is talking about today is something patient go back in later and just review it. So a very simple animated video where it also could help them sick and put them into ease as well about whatever that was. So it could be about a diagnosis.

Hey there, I'm Terry Coutsolioutsos, founder of RevRx AI. We remove friction and architect revenue for medtech and consumer health practices. Hey, Terry Coutsolioutsos here from Zero Friction, the podcast that really helps elevate an understanding of what's getting in the way of great patient care. And so, it's all about taking friction out of the system. Today, we have a remarkable guest that has a really creative organization that's helping remove friction from the health care provider to the patient itself. I have Mina Yacoub. He is the founder and the chief executive officer of Qik Productions, which is a patient education organization. Mina, great to have you today. So thankful for you to be here. I know that what you and your team are doing every day are making a great impact on how health care is being delivered, especially as we're branching away from brickandmortar style health care into more of a community-based setting. I'm sure that your technology is very much in high demand. So why don't you give us a little background on

Yourself on how you got into the patient education arena and then more importantly let's talk about Qik and let's talk about the p the the customers that you deal with and the problems that you're solving in healthcare today. Sure. Well thank you for having me. Glad to be here. So I have been a pharmacist for 14 years and six out of those years I have done pediatrics and I always noticed um that there was just one gap which consists of two things education and engagement. Anytime I'm talking to the patient or a caregiver I'm telling them information and I don't really know if they're retaining any of the information I'm telling them or or they're even understanding it. A lot of times they'll say yes uh thank you for explaining it. They might even ask follow-up questions, but I don't really know is they're retaining any of that information. That's number one. And number two is once you know once they go home, which we always provide resources, most of the time it is paper. They go

2:47 Home. I don't really know if they're even. So this is basically what Qik Productions is trying to resolve today. We are a patient education company and we are focused on patient understanding throughout the patient journey. whether it's, you know, during a visit or after the visit or before the visit. Uh we're trying to help education, educate the patient so they're not really overwhelmed. And we do that through making videos that are made of 2D animation and motion graphics and we put them on a platform where we're able to after that check analytics and see if the patients are engaged with that material. And that's just a little bit about me.

Well, good. And I think having your pharmacy background is probably really important, especially with how the world is transitioning today from care being even delivered in your home. Like and you think about like with the new markets of GLPS and hormone replacement therapy and how people are actually getting these drugs and delivering them at home without any supervision. I'm sure that education, knowledge, understanding are a huge part of the therapy because if it's not getting delivered correctly, then the intended impact of those therapies of those pharmaceuticals are not going to be made. So, I'm sure that there's a lot of things out there.

So, when your customers are coming to you and typically let's just talk about like I you know you mentioned infusion therapy, what what are your typical customer profiles look like? So we have infusion therapy centers. Do we have is it like multi-practice? Is it pediatrics? Where do you tend to focus on the most? So when we started we were focused on specialtyarmacies only. Okay. Especially like oncology medications but since then we've expanded and continue to expand. We've done uh specialtyarmacies uh and we've done uh infusion centers.

And then also we were approached by physician practices uh because you want to be able to provide some information just for their own practice not in a generic way. Um so we were approached by them and now we're starting to uh work with healthcare companies as well and clinics. So we we have a wide variety of clients we work with. At the end of the day, if the client is trying to help the patient with their journey and explain things uh in an easy uh in an easy way for them, um this is where we step in and help out. So, tell me a little bit about how like what are the typical pain points that your customers are feeling or finding in their practice that causes them to reach out and say, "Hey, like mean I got a problem with X, Y, and Z.

5:40 Can you help me with this? Is it patient compliance? Is it just the front desk getting overloaded with phone calls? What are the typical pain points that they come to you with? Sure. So, that's a great question. And to answer that question, I just want you to imagine with me a patient who just got newly diagnosed, let's say, with whatever disease that was, that patient feels very overwhelmed in the moment. And the physicians understand that. Physicians are human and they kind of understand that as well. So, what they want to do is they know that they're going to be talking to the patient about something today, but they know that when they go home, they're probably not going to remember what was said to them because they were surprised or they're upset or whatever happened to them. So the number one thing is physicians want to make sure that whatever you're talking about today is something that the the patient could go back to later and just review it through a very simple

Animated video where it also could help them stick and put them into ease as well about whatever that was. So it could be about a diagnosis for example we are working with a clinic about you know blood pressure. So that the that doctor said that the patient gets diagnosed with blood pressure and they do do tell them about doing specific things and not doing specific things but then they don't know if the patient is actually following it or even the patient remembers. So what you want to do is you want to put reminders hey put take your medication daily and you're taking it daily because this and this and this or take your blood pressure usually at those times because of this and this exa like etc. So you want to deliver make sure that the patient is understanding the information especially once they go home. Another thing is it helps with repeated questions. So a lot of times the doctors know that the patient is going to ask those specific questions because they see patients all

The time. So they know what are the repeated questions. So while a patient is waiting in the office they could actually play that on loop in a video or through a QR code in the room. Um, and by doing that, by the time the physician comes in, the patient already have heard a lot of those answers. So now, and instead of asking those questions, they're actually just adding more information to it. That's great. And what a great point to when you first brought up what's happening with the patient, like they're being diagnosed with something, right?

So now they're being faced with new information which probably is not positive in their life, right? and their brain's going in 18 different direction and the doctor's talking but they're not really picking everything up, right? And so now they have a backup plan for when they go home and they have to take their medicine or they take their or whatever regiment they're going to be on. Now they have a backup plan to actually have a simple way to understand how to get better. Right. The other point that you brought up, which I thought was really cool, is like while they're waiting in the physician's office, they can actually be looking at video and educational information that is repeated over and over again, which is using that dead air time when they're not really, you know, while they're waiting for the doctor to come see them. So, what a great way to actually use that time space wisely in the office and then at the same time have a website or a QR

8:58 Code to go back and actually link into to get information when you're at home after you've forgotten everything that they've told you. So, how do you handle like you know we have so many different cultures in the country and there's so many different languages and preferences of languages. How do you account for like Spanish and English and those types of things? Do these videos come in different translations? Yeah, absolutely. So, uh that's actually one of the main points as well is a lot of times when the doctor is trying to talk to the patient, if let's say they're alone, they're trying to translate whether it's using Google Translate or if they have a caregiver with them and they're trying to translate to the patient, information is not really a lot of the times exactly translated properly. And this is why I think having something like this which we do is very very important for the patients because you can watch the video in so many different languages depending

On whatever um the most popular languages that the provider would like to have in their practice. So you got the translation piece down which is great. Talk to me a little bit about why 3 minutes is so important. Like you know what if I have 20 minutes of content tell me like why did you land on three minutes? That's an interesting number and I want to better understand from a neuroscience perspective how that really works. Yeah, that's a great question. So, I realized that patients are not sitting down looking for a documentary. They're looking for answers.

So, if somebody tells me this is a 10-minute video, I'm probably going to say, okay, I'll watch it later. But when you're telling somebody, hey, this is a a twominut video, you know, if you want to just watch it right now, they'll prioritize. And this is exactly why we did the three minute max because it's long enough to teach something meaningful but short enough for patients to say I'll watch it now. Right. So, and that three minutes is a hard ceiling. Like what happens if you can't get it all done in three minutes?

Like what happens then? Sure. So, we are able to do the video in like we're able to link different videos and we're able to break it down, which actually there's a lot of clients I'm talking to right now that prefer not they don't even want three minutes. They want one or two minutes and they want to have multiple videos and we are able in our platform to link all those videos together. So, you're still given one QR code but in the same time able to provide so many videos.

Okay, good. So, we got the three minutes down. We have the translation piece. Talk to me about the no password needed, no login needed component to what you offer as well because that to me is probably as big as anything that you can offer from removing friction from the system. Like having somebody have to go in and get information and then log in and a password and put your email number in and all the stuff is that goes with that. So tell me about like how you built this technology and how phenomenally accessible it is for you.

12:00 Sure. So every additional step is going to reduce participation. If you tell somebody, hey, you need to create just an account and a password, they're not going to do it. If you tell them anything that is going to have them do an extra step is going to create a barrier. And honestly, patients already have enough barriers. If they just scan a QR code and a video plays, I think they're going to watch it. And the easier to make it, the more likely they'll receive the education.

Got it. Okay. And then I think the last piece is too, which is probably going to be the most controversial part of our conversation today, is you know, the choice not to use AI, right? Where today's world is moving so quickly and it would be so easy for you to use AI to create your content from a couple different perspectives. one is it probably could deliver it faster than hand-to-hand combat in terms of building something creatively. But tell me about that conscious decision a little bit because I think our listeners and our viewers would love to understand in the age of AI how you've said nope that's not the direction I'm going to go.

You've actually made it a strategic mission not to use AI. Sure. So here's the thing. I will tell you I'm not against AI. I actually love AI and I think AI is fantastic and it is used and we are using it in certain parts of our workflow like for example we offer an optional ho generation or even clients could record their own video and we could turn it into AI and then we could utilize it. But I will tell you though, when I first started this company, I thought AI would be the future for the videos and then I started showing those videos to people and the feedback was consistent. People said that it feels it doesn't feel authentic.

They basically said that if you're trying to tell me something trustworthy from a pharmacist and your pharmacist reviewed, how do I actually trust a video that looks fake? And that's basically when I think just basically a light turned on and I said, you know what, that actually makes sense. And I I do listen to clients because there's the ones who are actually needing this stuff. So anyways, I took that and I said, okay, well, what can I do that is trustworthy? And you have the 2D animation and motion graphics which also deliver everything the same way, but in the same time it it doesn't look fake.

It's not fake. But again, I just want to reiterate, I love and I truly think AI is fantastic and it is used in so many different ways, just not when it comes to actual visuals because people want to see something dust. Absolutely. And especially in healthcare, trust is everything. And you know, so kudos to you for being customer centric, understanding what your customers are preferring and what they want and what's going to deliver that trust. And so if that's what they want and you can deliver that, what a great avenue. So tell me the difference between like why animation versus another form of video content. So you've you've kind of landed on primarily using animation. Is there a reason?

15:11 Sure. Can you clarify that a little bit more? Like animation versus what? Animation versus like what we're videoing right now. So we could actually have an educational video with a live setting versus an animated video. Sure. So actually we do offer that as well in addition to the animation. So I have had clients who said hey I'm the face of the company. I want to be a part of the video and we do have them as a part of the video. So we are not against that at all and we are providing that for some our clients. But we do have a lot of clients who are not interested in being on camera. We do have a lot of clients also who don't want to explain everything in three minutes and this is where we come in and we always use creativity to make sure that we're helping a patients remember because visuals are also very important for the person to remember. I'll give you an example. You watch one of the videos for

Example the GLP video when it's talking about muscles and it basically talks talking about muscle loss. You'll see the muscle like shrinking in front of you as it's being said. Um, that's not to scare you, but in the same time, it's a way for you to remember. And the reason I chose that example is because I did a little survey of my own and I had probably 30 people and that was one of the things that people remember is when they're seeing the motion as things are being said, they're remembering it because they're seeing the actual visual happening in front of them. So, it makes it a little bit more effective. Nothing against people talking because we still do offer that. In addition, I don't mean just people talking, but like the video showing something live video versus animation. And I'm just wondering is that like is that an easier piece of information to consume as a animated video versus a if it were a live situation that you were recording

Doing the same thing with regards to the information like whether it's whether it's applying something on the body, whether it's doing an application of a a pharmaceutical, whether it's delivering an infusion or something along those lines. But I was just wondering if it's easier if it has a better retention capability than other forms of video. That's all. Yeah, I think there's there's many instances where I think animation has to be used for specific like that things like that because it does help the information stick a lot more.

Yeah. And again, I just go back to like easier to consume. Typically, animation works really well. like it it actually puts it in a way where people everybody can consume it, right? That's the that's the nice thing I think where children's videos are typically an animation, right? So they you can make things very simple for people to consume and understand. Absolutely. And to give you an example of that, we actually did create a video for pediatrics because I was also sitting with myself and thinking, well, why are we not counseling kids? Why are we talking to the parents and the parents telling the kids and we don't even know if the parent is going to say the right thing to the kids. He might also forget.

18:08 So I created as well pediatric counseling videos where it's kind of like a a kids show if you think about it but in a way and it's teaching them how to use an inhaler for example and not just using the inhaler it's telling them how the disease works, how the medication works, all of that information packed it and that video is only two minutes. Okay. Well, good. That's that sounds like a really good plan there. So, what other things do you want to get across to our audience today, Mina, with regards to Qik Productions, what you're offering? So, how do you get a hold of customers that need your services? Sure. So, as of right now, everything has been through LinkedIn and it's been really organic. So, the word of mouth, I think so far has been the number one thing for us. We didn't even start yet going on like a lot of social medias. The only thing is that we've been utilizing as of right now is LinkedIn, but we will expand as we go.

But again, it's the organic, you know, and people the word of mouth has been very very well for us. Good. And so, how do you use LinkedIn? Because that's another challenge as well, right? Like, so do you use LinkedIn sales navigator? Do you just, you know, is it just about building your connections? Do you create a lot of content on LinkedIn? Because I know that's something that you know everybody is like LinkedIn is a great network but it's a really challenging place to conquer too. Absolutely. I think for me I only try to reach out to the people who I truly think that there is some alignment. I know that a lot of times even like myself I get so many chats for people talking to me about random stuff that doesn't even belong to me. I don't know if it's AI or not, but I always just look for the people that I'm targeting and I also use sales navigator and I only reach out to the people that I feel there is an alignment

And then we go from there. So that's good. The personal touch is always good um with stuff like that for sure. Personal touch is always a really important part in any kind of connection for sure. And then any any last words as we wrap up on the part around quick productions, what you do, who you do it for? Any last words on that side before I have my last question for you? Sure. So I do want to say that nothing replaces the relationship between a patient and their healthcare provider.

So a video can answer unique questions and we could help it. We could help program it in a way where we could have specific answers to a repeated question. But our goal is to reinforce that conversation, standardize education and give patients another opportunity to understand what they have discussed with their clinician whether it's a pharmacist or doctor as well. Got it. You know, and I think as I kind of go through this conversation as well as the other conversations that we've had, what a great value that you're bringing to healthcare. You have people that are getting faced with information in an office that may not be great and their head is swirling in multiple different directions. You have doctors that are speaking to patients that think they're actually hearing every single word that they say, right? They're left with they're left with go pick it up at the pharmacy. The pharmacy gives you a bag and then they give you all these things stapled together the

21:33 Bag with information that's printed on this size and then you go home and then you're like now what do I do? Right? And now you're now you have a service that has a QR code that says just click on this or click on this link or get your phone on this QR code and it takes you right to the information that they need. No login, no passwords. Information is easily accessible. It's delivered consistently the same way over and over and over again and any language that the customer wants it in. And what a way to and then done in an animation format so that you know that it is digestible by a wide range of people who can understand what's going on. maybe even if they didn't even understand the words or maybe the the videos are probably so good that they could probably even figure it out without the words. Right.

So, what a great service that you're providing health care and just wanted to thank you for that. Thank you so much for having me. So, before we go, I have one more question and this is a question I typically ask all my guests if I remember to do it and I hope to have it wrapped into an episode one day. But so Mina, if you could take current day Mina and go back to 18-year-old Mina and offer one piece of advice, and it can be professional, it can be personal, but you can only give younger Mina one piece of advice. What would that one piece of advice be? That's a very good question.

I think if there's one thing that I could think of to say to my old self would be don't mistake slow progress for failure. A lot of times we feel like because something is not going my way it's failing. But I think if you stay consistent and just keep doing what you got to do, you will. That's great advice. you know, especially in a world where we live in a push button society when everybody wants everything yesterday and you know to take slow progress, be consistent in your approach, stay strong in your belief systems and goodness will come.

So Mina, thank you so much man. I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Well, we look forward to bigger and better things from Qik Productions. And again, how would they get in touch with you, Mina? If somebody, if any of our viewers or listeners would need to, you know, if they have a need for your product, how would they get in touch with you? Sure. So, the easy way would be go into my website and just basically click on contact and you could literally just send me a message or if you're interested, you could just send me an email at info@quickproductions.com.

24:14 So, it's info@qproductions.com. Great. And the website is qikproductions.com guys. So correct qikproductions.com and they have plenty of forms there on the website for you to engage, set up a demo and an appointment and get Mina involved. So thank you again. Appreciate it, Mina. Have a great day and thanks again for being on the program. So let's connect. Let's find where your revenue is getting stuck. Book a call at RevRx AI and build your revenue engine.