When VWD Connect held its first annual Patient Conference in May 2017, no one could have imagined the power of this landmark event. For a disease as rare as severe VWD, having a large collection of patients in one place was an extraordinary feat.

Knowing how monumental this conference could be, the Foundation employed an Audience Response System (ARS) to be able to ask questions and collect feedback from the patient’s perspective – capitalizing on this unique opportunity to better describe the severe VWD patient.  

HOW IT WORKS

When using ARS, each patient is given a handheld clicker with a unique number.  This ensures patient confidentiality, while allowing the demographics of the patient (age, gender, diagnosis, etc.) to be tied to the individual question responses. Throughout the conference, questions from a range of topics were asked and then group responses immediately displayed.

The system was used at three annual conferences (2017-2019). Questions addressed prophylaxis, family history, willingness to engage in research, and more. Our ARS data has been published in many forms, please click on the links below to explore past poster presentations featuring ARS data.