It’s the great migration to digital. And as civilization makes its move, the pharmaceutical industry is trying to figure out how to reach out to physicians. Pharmaceutical reps are slowly becoming a thing of the past. Branded medication portals leave most doctors cold. Email outreach is marginal.
Pharma strategists ask me how to reach doctors in the new world. I don’t have an answer. It isn’t that I can’t come up with an answer. It’s just that a good one doesn’t exist. Why?
The doctors aren’t anywhere right now. They’re stuck somewhere between the analog and digital. Socially they’re nebulous. Their virtual communities are non-existent. Public social networks are sparsely populated. When they participate they watch and rarely create or discuss. Our profession is going through a lot right now and it’s evident in anemic digital adoption.
Selling to doctors may be a thing of the past. Physicians are becoming ever-so-slowly irrelevant when it comes to medication decisions. Case-in-point: moi. As a gastroenterologist I use my share of proton pump inhibitors. But it’s officially reached the point where I have no input regarding which acid suppressant my patients receive. Doctors, it seems, recommend and a third party decides.
Selling to patients may be the thing of the future. If you suggested 25 years ago that large pharmaceutical companies would be marketing to patients you’d have been locked up. Smart organizations like Johnson & Johnson understand that in the world of diabetes, for example, the money’s with patients and e-patient opinion leaders. Patients are increasingly playing a larger role in determining the products they want to use within their ‘disease state.’
So reaching doctors in the virtual world is impractical if not impossible at this point. But consider these likelihoods:
- The divide between the physician online and offline will close.
- Doctors will appear in greater numbers in public networks.
- There will be a dominant physician social platform.
- Medicine will evolve to embrace a social mindset and design.
I suspect that the future relationship between providers and industry will revert to involve more trust and, ironically, more of a personal connection despite the digital medium. As the world goes virtual the hunger for real connection will grow. And those who reach us in some personal way will hold market advantage over those who don’t.
It’s hard to pull off now but ultimately the doctors will arrive. Stay tuned.
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This might be the trend we’ll see.
The one issue with regard to a more social presence goes to scalability and thus allocation of resources. That will be easier to do if there is an emergence of larger platforms and a swell of physician involvement online.
But Social is a crazy thing. Easier to claim it promise than actually execute.
Social’s just a small part of a larger party – and will just be a feature of more robust software.
In my judgement, Pharma’s future isn’t so much in Social as it is in Presence – and in the near future, mobile may be its most effective deployment of resources.
@PhilBaumann
Spot on. The influence of the payers and patients on the decision making process is the critical component here with respect to how pharma digitally details to physicians. Take, for example, hormone replacement therapy (HRT). Once the guidelines came out in 2002, prescriptions for HRT dropped like a rock. Now this information is all over the Internet. No amount of detailing to a physician will convince a patient to try a hormone if they have fears driven by internet based information/misinformation.
Also, I just don’t see many physicians spending a lot more time on the web, especially via desktops and laptops, during their routine practice hours. Short, mobile “reminders” from pharma might be the only way forward for marketers.
Can pharma detail doctors digitally? Yes, but in limited instances with mobile approaches.
http://twitter.com/LacertaBio
Pharma is already right on the doctors screen, in the waiting room helping check in the patient and going home with them via educational materials.
Many people in health IT don’t know the history of pharma and how they target markets to providers starting when they are in medical school. Nor do they realize that 95% of all prescriptions filled are uploaded and resold each night to drug firms which are then combined with data bases of doctors that the AMA sells (18% of their annual income).. Many consumer advocates have worked to slow down pharma access to medical schools and some large clinics have blocked pharma reps from access to their providers..
Pharma has simply down a very elegeant end run..Three quick examples
1) At the recent health 2.0 conference a “free” EHR announced that over 43,000 people (not necessarily providers) are using their pharma sponsored EHR product and it is now the fastest growing one in the US.. The business model is to deliver pharma ads on each page of your medical record.
2) Another firm offers providers “free” tablets so that they can capture patients information during check in. The cost is pharma sponsored educational materials deliver directly to the patient. As an aside it also can check benefits so that if you haven’t met your deductible yet you pay in full prior to the visit (IE no balance billing)
3) One of the largest Health Information exchanges Axolotol is now part of Ingenix – one of the largest PBM’s in the US. (PBM’s are pharmancy benefit managers).
Do you know who is buying and selling your data? (legally).
Wenn jemand weiß was das alles soll, dann soll er mir es erklären
I live in a world outside America!
We are seeing a trend in which doctors are coming online through invitations and are beginning to connect with each other. Mobile may be for quickies but doctors in my region seem to be spending at least 2 days in week on desktops/laptops to do some serious learning and professional conversations.
The IT enabling cycle for doctors in my region seems to be in the order of creating an email, then have a web presence, later begin with conservative conversations to move on to a subtle marketing using social media further to be open-up to get some e-detailing from the Pharma and later get the inside story of EMR right for their practice!
A long journey but seems worth the effort for the sake of a better informed society! And yes, nothing can replace the personal touch and warmth
Dr V – Great seeing these issues articulated so clearly and hearing your perspective is fascinating. As someone who has a technology that powers a lot of these digital programs, we have realized that this shift represents the “freeing of information” that has long been locked up only between the pharma rep physician dialogue, and perhaps the paper brochures of the past. With the free-flow of content to HCP’s in a more relevant, meaningful way and the empowerment of patients through the vast amounts of information available what we’re seeing is a digital revolution that is truly tying together manufacturers that have great insights and data, physicians with the expertise, and patients with the desire to take more control of their health outcomes.
I’m on the edge of my seat each and every day seeing the shifts you so clearly articulated – please keep the perspective coming!