9th Patient-Centered Engagement World Congress 2026 Americas
“Part of The Patient Centricity & Collaboration Series”
Driving Partnership, Access & Measurable Outcomes
5th – 6th November 2026
Embassy Suites by Hilton Boston at Logan Airport
207 Porter St, Boston, MA 02128, United States
Equity, Access & Sustainable Outcomes
- Developing targeted strategies to ensure all patient populations are empowered to engage with their care plans consistently.
- Incorporating non-clinical factors into engagement models to provide more holistic and effective support.
- Building and sustaining collaborative relationships with local organizations to bridge the gap between industry, healthcare providers, and the communities they serve.
- Establishing robust metrics to track progress and ensure that improvements in patient engagement lead to equitable health outcomes across all demographics.
Moderator:
Panelists:
Erica Alshehabi, Sr. AD, Patient Recruitment and Representation, Boehringer Ingelheim
Tricha Shivas, Chief of Staff and Strategy, Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research
Sarah Cross, Senior Health Value Translation Lead, PDMD, Sanofi
Hazael Ajayi, MSc., Healthcare and Research Operations Professional
- Patient recruitment in clinical trials remains a significant challenge, with many patient communities continuing to be underrepresented
- Current approaches to enhance participation are study-specific and lack scalable, community‐driven solutions sustained for significant time periods
- The Reflections Collective was launched to support a community-driven framework to expand clinical trial awareness and participation
- Implementation of community-led engagement supports inclusion of clinical trials a component of care, not only a research opportunity
- Reflections demonstrated impact through a coordinated approach resulting in increased clinical trial participation and representativeness
Sarah Cross, Senior Health Value Translation Lead, PDMD, Sanofi
Katie Neu, Founder and CEO, Badass with a Bad Ass
- Partnering to translate insights into evidence-based publications that elevate the community voice
- Uncovering unmet needs to drive meaningful differentiation
- Engaging patients where they are through unique, community-centered approaches
Jordanna Mora, Vice President, Patient Advocacy & Centricity, Beam Therapeutics
- Understand and address access to technology that influence digital health
- Utilize digital tools that address language barriers, educational and cultural differences across populations to create partnerships for digital literacy.
- Pair clinical trial data systems with community-based approaches; incorporate telehealth, and other low-friction platforms that communities typically use and trust
- Address affordability / infrastructure issues related to digital literacy
- Understand how opportunity costs, risk exposure, and reputational benefits factor into prioritizing and applying patient insights to organizational questions or problems.
- Explore how the DOM provides documented evidence of patient-focused drug development (PFDD) for regulatory discussions
- Build credibility with internal and external stakeholders by generating evidence of action and impact around insights
- Reframe insights as value drivers by moving them from “too soft” or “opaque” to clear, measurable, and evidential
Devra Densmore, CEO & Principal, Elevate Advocacy
- Analyzing remote monitoring and nursing visits for data integrity and retention.
- Technology access and digital literacy
- Evaluating and mitigating logistical shifts from clinics to families.
- Reviewing hybrid trial case studies to optimize the participant journey.
- Increased competition for eligible patients continues to cause significant delays in trial timelines.
- Successful enrollment is becoming more dependent on flexible participation options and simplified protocols to improve conversion rates.
- Clinical sites are experiencing a rising workload to maintain patient engagement and prevent attrition.
- Predictive analytics and AI are becoming essential tools for improving patient targeting and preventing dropouts.
- Bullet points to follow
Christian Rubio, Executive Director, EverythingALS
- Establishing direct links between patient engagement and clinical or quality results.
- Leveraging insights gained from patient experiences to inform our strategies.
- Evaluating the long-term effectiveness of treatments.
- Providing clear evidence of value to healthcare systems and payers.
Tricha Shivas, Chief of Staff and Strategy, Foundation for Sarcoidosis Research
- Understand the scale and patterns of today’s patient cost burden in employer-based plans
- Learn how patient costs changed compared to wages, insurance premiums and medicine prices
- Recognize who benefits – and who is left exposed – under current benefit designs
- Learn from evidence in West Virginia how point‐of‐sale rebate pass‐through changes patient costs and medication use
- Hear more about J&J’s engagement with patients to understand barriers with insurance design
Ulrich Neumann, Director, Access & Policy Research, Johnson & Johnson
- Establishing shared goals to ensure all parties are working toward the same objectives.
- Fostering collaboration between healthcare systems, industry partners, and advocacy groups.
- Identifying successful engagement strategies and implementing them on a national level.
- Developing consistent benchmarks for patient engagement across the industry.
Moderator:
Panellist:
Ulrich Neumann, Director, Access & Policy Research, Johnson & Johnson
- Defining what a meaningful patient partnership looks like in practice.
- Aligning incentives across diverse healthcare stakeholders.
- Strategies for scaling successful engagement models on a national level.
- Proven methods for building a healthcare system that patients can fully trust.
Event Partners
