Traditionally, the relationship between the physician and the pharma sales rep conjures images of brochures, pamphlets, free samples, and gifts extolling the virtues of your latest treatment.
But this approach no longer works in today’s healthcare landscape.
Increases in the number of competing treatments and complex therapies entering the market, digital technologies, rising physician workloads, and a reduction in healthcare budgets mean that doctors expect a lot more than aggressive marketing messages.
Healthcare professionals now want content that provides them with knowledge and scientific information that enables them to operate more effectively in their work and improve patient outcomes.
Here are 4 types of content that are essential in building trust between medical professionals and sales reps, and driving treatment adoption:
1) Product-related Information
Physicians still appreciate product-related information and promotional content. This includes details on specific product characteristics (SPCs), indications, contraindications, and side effects. They also welcome updates on new therapies, changes to existing ones, and treatment guidelines
Free samples, as well as brochures, leaflets, and pharma HCP websites also continue to play a part in encouraging doctors to prescribe your treatment.
Nevertheless, a survey by Graphite Digital revealed that 80% of healthcare professionals don’t trust pharma-branded digital content. In addition, many physicians feel that pharma content is not objective and only presents positive results on a therapy’s effectiveness.
So, being transparent about your product’s shortcomings as well as advantages within your promotional materials is important for gaining the trust of healthcare professionals.
What’s more, trust can be built further if your reps provide balanced and useful information on disease diagnosis and management. This demonstrates your willingness to be a part of the solution and help doctors deliver more effective care to their patients.
2) Clinical trial and real-world data
Healthcare professionals increasingly expect pharma to direct them to objective sources of information, including scientific data so that they can make more effective decisions on treatment options.
So, provide your sales reps with print, or links to digital versions of full scientific research papers to pass on to healthcare professionals.
Include the latest research that presents clinical evidence of your product’s safety and efficacy vis-a-vis other competing treatments. Present recent studies on treatments and how they relate to patient care.
3) Medical education
The most effective way for pharma/biotech companies to gain the trust of healthcare professionals, and ultimately drive them to prescribe their treatments is to provide them with educational content.
This is important as the physician’s ultimate goal is to deliver the best possible outcomes for their patients. So, doctors now expect you to provide content that helps them increase their clinical knowledge so that they can diagnose, treat, and manage their patients effectively.
So, offer them a variety of educational and professional development opportunities, including:
- Virtual webinars with leading specialist clinicians and key opinion leaders
- Virtual training on new therapies
- Links to online and in-person speaker programmes, conferences, congresses, and presentations
- Information on new scientific research, treatment options, and patient management techniques (including treatment admin)
4) Patient education materials
While the physician’s ultimate goal is to improve patients’ lives, this is also the ultimate goal of the pharma company.
So, the content and services you provide should not only focus on treating patients, but also empowering them to manage their condition, take control of their health, and make positive lifestyle choices
To achieve this, provide physicians with educational materials and tools that they can pass on to patients. These can include:
- Print and digital content on patient assistance programmes, including help with access to medication, and information on discounts and insurance coverage
- Gamification such as online quizzes and apps that educate patients on how the drug attacks the disease
- Information on FAQs and important questions for patients to ask doctors during consultations
- Contact information and links to patient support groups and advocacy organisations
These 4 types of content show that you need to focus the bulk of your efforts on providing objective scientific information and educating healthcare professionals and patients. Delivering product-related information and promotional messages remain important, but should only be shared after trust is built.
The emphasis here is building long-term mutually beneficial relationships where pharma provides healthcare professionals with valuable content and services that enable them to deliver high-quality care so that they can make a real difference to patients’ lives.
So, the majority of your interactions with physicians should aim to be a font of information, help, and advice that addresses the challenges they face, and answers questions to specific medical problems