Healthcare professionals would benefit greatly from communication training to ensure they understand their individual patients better as people, and so they can improve their interactions and set their patients up for success. Communication should be an integral part of continuing medical education.

The pharmaceutical industry can have a critical role in helping set patients up for success by supporting healthcare professionals. The industry can help improve how healthcare professionals communicate with their patients to try to minimize a potential “nocebo spiral”, produce tailored tools and programs for healthcare professionals and patients, and help with signposting to robust and reliable information sources and supportive forums.