EVEN THE WEAKEST IN SOCIETY

CAN BE SEEN AND HEARD

(media relations, online)

Joining forces and fighting for patients‘ rights! That was the idea that started the work of an umbrella patient organization as the only one of its kind in Slovakia. And since the voice of patients is best heard in the media, in 2015 our journey together began.

WHAT WERE THE EXPECTATIONS?

Being a relevant partner in the discussion for experts and politicians and being able to promote changes beneficial to patients required not only knowledge of the issue, but also the building of relationships and a strong brand. While the task of the association was to tread the pavements to politicians and partners, our task was to build the association a reliable respondent to current topics, to discussions in the media and a strong name towards the general public, patients.

WHAT WAS DONE?

The Association for the Protection of Patients‘ Rights of the Slovak Republic was founded in 2001, but we started building its name from scratch, so to speak. To begin with, we wanted to create our own communication channels, where we could inform the general public about the achievements of the association, as well as news and events in the health sector.

One does not have to be a patient to perceive that the field of healthcare is a very dynamically changing sphere with relatively complex legislation. Even outside of more demanding periods, such as the coronavirus pandemic, it is therefore important to regularly monitor the events in the health sector and to react correctly and in time through the media and own communication channels, or even to create pressure on politicians. Outside of external communication, we are always ready to advise and help the team in the association in the implementation of their own activities, for example at the annual all-Slovak patient conference.

HOW DID WE DO?

Over the years of our cooperation, the Association for the Protection of Patients‘ Rights has gained a strong reputation not only among politicians, but also among journalists and the general public. In recent years, it has not happened that the news media did not pay attention to the opinions and topics that the association opens in view of the current events. They are proactively interested in the opinion of patients, which is not missing in any reportage or discussion session on important health topics that concern patients. For the year 2022, we recorded 1,089 native outputs with a total value of almost 4.5 million euros (AVE) with a media impact of more than 88 million viewers/readers (GRP).

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Medicine WITH SENSE PROJECT

Medicine with sense taught patients to ask questions and minimize self-diagnosis and treatment by dr. Google. Thanks to the support of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic and other professional partners, we showed people how to distinguish relevant information about treatment from misleading and confusing ones, where to look for complete information about their medicines and what to ask a doctor or pharmacist. In 5 years of active creation of educational content (articles, videos with experts, quizzes, representative surveys), we managed not only to increase the drug literacy of the general public, but also to arouse media interest in many medicine related topics.

In the monitored period from September 2020 to March 2021, the project reached more than 1.8 million users on the Internet. Website www.liekysrozumom.sk, as the main information source, was visited by almost 226,000 unique visitors during this period. So, on average, more than 32,000 people consumed our content every month. By creating interesting content for the media, we achieved 153 native outputs in relevant Slovak media during this period.