Emily Freeman

Dr. Emily Freeman is a social/behavioral scientist interested in the development of evidence based communication tools to facilitate decision   making between patients and healthcare providers. Dr. Freeman is exploring how medical evidence (i.e. risk, benefit, and health outcomes) is   constructed and communicated within a patient-healthcare provider clinical encounter. In addition she is interested in the intersection of   medical evidence and patient's preferences and the impact on shared treatment decisions. Her research has focused on the impact of shared   treatment decision making on the quality of care received by patients and using shared decision making as a tool for patient engagement. Finally, she is interested in bringing a more patient-centered approach to drug development through patient-reported and defined outcomes.

In her roles at Bristol-Myers Squibb and more recently Pfizer, Dr. Freeman conducted research to assess the effectiveness of the FDA mandated REMS and EMA RMM's on patient and healthcare provider communication and knowledge and the impact of regulatory science on both groups. In   addition Dr. Freeman has been the principal investigator on various health outcomes studies within the pharmaceutical industry focused on improving the effectiveness of communication to HCP's/patients, understanding the experience of treatment on patient's quality of life/survival, improving medication adherence, and qualitative understanding of benefit-risk from the patient's perspective.  

Dr. Freeman received her PhD degree in Health Geography from McMaster University with postdoctoral training in Psychosocial Oncology from the   University of Toronto. Her substantive research interests include: patient engagement (social media, behavioral interventions, and health   literacy), qualitative health research, clinical epidemiology, improving medication adherence, patient reported outcomes, risk communication, and   shared treatment decision making.