SpA treatment network

"Develop an interactive aid for people with SpA to use outside the regular health care system"

Abbvie Biopharmaceutical

Spondyloarthritis, or SpA, is a chronic group of illnesses that starts with inflammation in the lower back, causing severe pain and stiffness. Each type is really tricky to diagnose, and every patient has very individual symptoms, making the road to diagnose long and difficult. This project was all about research, to get into the community of those affected.

Role Research, interviews, idea, presentation.
Client Abbvie Biopharmaceutical, 2014

The concept

When deepening my digital knowledge at Hyper Island I was presented with the opportunity to work with a major pharmaceutical company - Abbvie. The brief was to research and find an idea for an interactive aid to use outside the regular health care system for people suffering from SpA.

Me and my team managed to break into the community for people with this hard to diagnose disease, and I went through a number of deep, personal interviews. Finding people who was willing to talk about this very personal matter led to New Zealand and the UK (via Skype), as well as a few places around Sweden. To make the interviews meaningful, I spent a couple of hours with every person to get into depth, in order to be able to talk about everything from sex, to depression, to what made meaning in life for those affected. I also went through numerous of online testimonials and broke all of this down into valuable insights.

The insights laid the foundation for the concept that was developed, and the journey of the research, and the insights to idea was delivered to Abbvie.

At the moment I'm in the process of updating my projects, more info will follow.