App Development for Medical Education Platforms

The impact of Type 2 diabetes on a patient changes over time and is directly related to age, weight, and lifestyle choices. D2 Creative was tasked with developing an interactive tool for key opinion leaders to use during speaker bureau programs that would demonstrate the effects of the disease and incite discussion among physicians.

Rather than simply supporting discussions around a single drug, this program needed to cover the company’s full diabetes portfolio.

We wanted to create virtual patients that speakers could manipulate based on the topic of a particular discussion. But virtual patients are often computer-generated and lack empathy. To convey a more powerful message—and create a “Wow!” factor, we enlisted the renowned team of make-up artists from Saturday Night Live to transform a diverse group of actors representing different patient types.

Using prosthetics and a matrix of ages, Body Mass Indices, and A1C levels, we each actor underwent 16 makeup sessions to represent distinct ‘stages’ in the life of a diabetic patient based on specific paths they might take.

Scientific 3D animation was also incorporated to help tell the patients’ stories at a cellular level.

We created a user-friendly interactive app that allows a speaker to select a patient type and then manipulate—in real time—attributes including age, BMI and A1C. This allows the audience to watch the patient age and gain or lose weight with time. The virtual patient can then be seen in the exam room, providing answers to questions.

With this technology, we were able to deliver a powerful, on-label message that was truly disruptive in the world of dinner meetings.

This app is just one of a suite of tools included in D2 Creative’s professional medical education & speaker bureau management platform.