Learn why efficiency, simplicity, and building relationships between pharma and healthcare workers is so important
A pharmaceutical brand’s success is dependent upon the input of members of the healthcare profession. However, especially with physicians, it’s often hard-won. Physicians are bombarded constantly with people asking for “just a bit of your time” on top of patient demands and the duty of caring for patients – not to mention any academic workloads they may have. This often leaves little time for them to give feedback to pharma companies regarding products.
In fact, less than 50% of physicians worldwide are accessible.
A recent study by ZS Associates found that only 46% of doctors around the globe met with pharma sales representatives in the past year. In 2008, that figure was 78%. It is estimated that physicians receive more than 2,800 contact requests from pharmaceutical representatives annually. These contacts consume an estimated 84 hours of the physician’s time each year – two full work weeks.
You can see why pharma teams must rethink strategies for reaching out to prescribers.
4 New Pharma Business Ideas
What is it that healthcare professionals want from the pharmaceutical industry? Here are four new ideas in pharma that can improve relations with healthcare professionals and gain better response rates for research:
- Simplicity
Perhaps more than anything else, straightforward requests and clear, concise messages are needed to make the healthcare professional’s experience easy. To illustrate, a survey with simple multiple-choice questions was 4x-10x more likely to be completed by physicians than complex market insights surveys. Complex formats include multiple short-answer questions, forced rankings, and matrix questions.
- Efficiency
Time is critically valuable to healthcare professionals, so accurate estimations regarding time involved is key. Using technology to pre-profile contacts enhances accurate targeting of which professionals should be approached for discussions on which drugs, eliminating wasted time stemming from contacting a practice about a drug that is irrelevant to its specialty.
- Respect
Of course, healthcare professionals deserve the respect of pharma – respect for their data, respect for requests of opt-in participation, and respect for the time it takes for professionals to support pharma’s research needs. Research shows that healthcare professionals are more likely to complete online surveys as opposed to qualitative research, mainly because of the ability to complete surveys at the professional’s leisure. Respect goes above and beyond offerings like digital engagement, efficient interactions, and automation. For busy professionals, time is money.
It becomes clear that pharma vendors who respect physicians’ time will get their time.
- Making Surveys Mobile-Friendly
Purposeful participation by physicians can be achieved by making access to surveys mobile-friendly. In a 2017 survey, 83% of healthcare professionals stated that they take market insight surveys on a smartphone. The survey also found that 73% of physicians stated that the most important feature that would prompt their participation in surveys was the ability to take them on any device.
Health care professionals want the feedback they do provide to pharma vendors to be meaningful and impactful. Pharma reps should optimize the timing of conversations with physicians and be prepared with real-time insights about competitive launches and market events ahead of time.
The ultimate goal of any new business idea aimed at facilitating relations between pharma reps and healthcare providers is to make the entire experience more streamlined and more personalized. This can happen by reps ensuring that the physicians they reach are the best audience for the research being done, by using automation, piping, branching, and skip logic methodology, and by implementing the highest security for research done and insight given.
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