Two boards, two weeks, and ten initiatives still running three years on
- participants across two boards - patients, carers, clinicians and nurses
- 20
- both boards ran simultaneously, one moderator each
- 2 weeks
- pages of discussion captured, word for word
- 200+
- actionable initiatives - some still in implementation three years on
- 10
The challenge
The medical affairs team needed to hear from the people closest to a condition: the patients living with it, the carers supporting them, and the clinicians and nurses treating them. Getting all of them into one room was never going to work. Geography, work, health and scheduling each ruled out a different part of the group, and any live format would have heard only from whoever could attend.
There was a second problem. Put patients and clinicians in the same conversation and one cohort tends to shape, or silence, the other. The team wanted each group’s view on its own terms.
The approach
The engagement ran on Rumi as two separate asynchronous boards, open at the same time for two weeks, each with its own moderator:
A patient and carer board of 12 members: eight patients and four carers, contributing from home, at their own pace, with time to say things properly.
A clinician and nurse board of 8 members: six clinicians and two nurses, fitting the discussion around clinical schedules rather than the other way round.
Two rooms rather than one, deliberately - so neither cohort could dominate the other’s views, and each group’s thinking was captured on its own terms.
The outcome
The patient and carer board generated high engagement and rich, substantive discussion: the kind of lived-experience detail a survey never surfaces and a live meeting rarely has time for. Across both boards, the platform captured more than 200 pages of discussion, every contribution word for word and attributed.
From that record the team drew ten actionable initiatives. Three years later, some of them are still being implemented - a measure of how much of the panel’s thinking actually reached a decision, rather than a slide deck.
Why it worked
Participation without burden
No travel, no fixed meeting slot, any device. For patients and carers managing a condition, that convenience is what made full, considered participation possible.
Every cohort heard on its own terms
Separate, moderated rooms gave patients and clinicians each a full share of the conversation - the power imbalance of a mixed live room designed out.
A record that outlived the meeting
Over 200 pages of attributed discussion became ten initiatives the team could act on - and is still acting on three years later.
“I run every Rumi demo personally. Thirty minutes, your use case, no hard sell - and you leave with a clear plan for your first activity.”
Steve Royle · Founder, Rumi Connect on LinkedIn