Fact: Healthcare Is Changing

Efforts to reform healthcare are moving forward as it is clear that as a nation we must decrease healthcare costs. Right now there are more questions than answers about the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that the US Supreme Court recently upheld. One thing is clear—the US healthcare system is changing. Below are my thoughts on three key areas the life science industry must prepare for.

Articulate the value of your product.

Conventional end points of safety, efficacy, and quality of life are no longer sufficient. Be prepared to demonstrate cost-effectiveness or cost-avoidance.

Implementation tips...

1) Work collaboratively with your colleagues in marketing, managed care marketing, pharmacoeconomics, clinical affairs, medical affairs, and regulatory to understand the data that is desired by various stakeholders when they are determining if a product is valuable or not. Develop plans to obtain the needed data.

2) Determine which patients are most likely to benefit from your product. Communicate to healthcare providers the patients that are most likely to benefit from treatment. Additionally, assist with screening and referring appropriate patients to local physicians or study sites.

Plan for government rebate plans and pricing controls.

If your treatment is expensive, be prepared for limitations on its use compared to less expensive alternatives.

Implementation tips...

1) Adjust your forecasts

2) Begin working on how to articulate the value of your product (see above for insights)

Provide programs that enhance outcomes for individual patients.

Shift your focus to taking care of patients and improving their outcomes. Patients will stay on treatment and future healthcare expenses resulting from patient non-adherence will decrease.

Implementation tips...

1) Plan and implement programs that support patients on their treatment journey.

2) Understand the barriers patients face in remaining adherent and compliant with therapy.

3) Develop and implement patient support programs that are a resource and guide for patients during their treatment journey. This can include offering access to healthcare-trained representatives for questions or providing educational materials to help patients continue with treatment.

There are many ways you can articulate the value of your product. Additionally there are many options for providing programs that enhance patient outcomes. As a pharmaceutical call center, we provide as needed call-in support for patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers to answer questions about a product and its side effects, enroll patients in a support program, connect patients with healthcare providers in their local area, and connect patients with co-pay assistance resources. Our experiences show that within 6 months of implementing a patient support program patient adherence increases 10% to 15%. Patient adherence to treatment decreases future healthcare costs related to treating complications from earlier non-adherence.

The June 2012 issue of PharmaVOICE magazine has an article on healthcare reform and the potential impacts of it on the life science industry. If you are interested in additional perspectives on the impact of healthcare reform you can access the article here.

I’d like to hear from you. How are you preparing for the impact of the ACA? What areas have you identified as opportunities? What kinds of initiatives and programs are you planning? Please join the conversation and share your thoughts, challenges, and questions on the ACA implementation. We can all learn from each other.

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Keep it Simple: Focus on the Patient with Adherence Programs

Hi, I'm Moriah Weissman and I'm a Clinical Director at Tunstall AMAC. I work with Lou and our life science company clients to provide clinical insights for the development of patient, caregiver, and healthcare provider support and communication programs. Lou invited me to contribute to the blog, and I look forward to sharing insights and thoughts with you, as well as learning more about your challenges.

In working with our clients there is a lot of interest in life science companies about maintaining patients on a treatment. A number of articles and studies have been published about patient adherence, and I certainly believe patient adherence can be a driver in your business. In looking at many of the patient adherence articles that have been published two thoughts come to my mind…

1. Why do most patient adherence programs seem so complicated?
2. Patient adherence programs are expensive, time-consuming, and difficult to implement!

Many of the patient adherence articles quickly become lost in the data, in analysis paralysis, or in defining whether or not a program is truly patient adherence based solely on whether or not it’s driving “behavior change”.

Perhaps I have over simplified the definition of patient adherence. To me, patient adherence is keeping a patient on a specific treatment. There are many ways this can be done, and certainly I agree that it’s important to embark on a discovery process that helps you to understand the patient journey and a patient’s desire to manage their condition. Without this it’s easy to develop a program that doesn’t drive the right actions. In fact an earlier blog post by Lou Shapiro provided suggestions for understanding the patient journey and resources for understanding a patient’s desire to manage their condition.

I believe two critical success factors for effective patient adherence programs are…

1. Develop meaningful programs that engage patients.
2. Collect feedback and data so the program can be continuously improved.

We offer four straightforward solutions to help our clients build effective patient adherence programs. These include…

1. Our focus is the patient. Start with the patient and keep them, and their needs, at the center of your solution.

2. Our AMAC Medical Advisory Board. We have relationships with healthcare providers in a number of therapeutic areas. We engage these experts to help us understand a particular disease-state/condition, current care delivery models as well as patient needs and challenges. We then work with our Medical Advisory Board to develop custom healthcare communication solutions that meet patients’ needs.

3. Our clinical program directors. They have advanced life science degrees in nursing and pharmacy. We tap into their clinical expertise to understand the patient journey and barriers to treatment as well.

4. Our pharmaceutical call center operators. They talk with healthcare providers and their offices, as well as patients and caregivers each day. They hear first-hand about the challenges patients have in managing their condition. Whether the challenges have to do with side effects, dosing, or cost, our call center operators can describe in detail what the obstacles are that patients face.

To build an effective program we take these insights and evaluate them against the product’s goals and needs. Next, we start putting together solutions that we, as a pharmaceutical call center, can provide. We also work with our clients to integrate other services, such as customized direct mail fulfillment, as appropriate.

Of course, I’ve simplified our development process for the sake of keeping this post brief. And my point is this: patient adherence programs are not rocket science. They can be straightforward and still be effective. I’m willing to bet that if you keep the patient, and their needs, at the center of your solution it will be a success.

Now, I want to hear from you. Do you agree, or do you think my oversimplified approach is wrong? Join the conversation and share your thoughts, challenges and questions.

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Engaging HCPs, Patients, and Caregivers to Shape Your Initiatives

Gaining Valuable Insights from Daily Interactions

Designing and implementing effective marketing programs starts with understanding what your customers need most. This knowledge will help you develop impactful and desired programs that customers seek out. The idea of including the “voice of the customer” (or VOC) has been around for many years, and is becoming standard practice when developing new initiatives and programs.

We live in exciting times and there are limitless new opportunities to interact with patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. The challenge is to engage your customers quickly and to obtain meaningful insights. Some life science companies have experimented with using social media to reach patients and caregivers as a channel to understand their needs. This is a viable solution; however, with social media communications you lack “real-time” interactions and the ability to ask questions and probe for further understanding.

At PhoneScreen and AMAC we have been working with our life science company clients on a number of projects including tele-sales programs and patient support programs. One of the unforeseen benefits of these programs has been the ability to quickly gather insights on the needs and challenges of patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers in managing a disease-state or condition. These insights enable our clients (and us) to develop meaningful programs.

Our representatives speak directly with patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers each day. Through the course of these interactions they develop relationships that provide meaningful insights into what these audiences need. We take these insights, share them with our clients, and either integrate them into our existing programs or develop new initiatives.

Examples of how these insights have been leveraged into our programs include..

* Including new questions in our FAQ information
* Updating our call scripts to include information that is often asked
* Developing a resource sheet that is shared with patients and caregivers

Three tips I can share with you for success are…

1) Careful documentation of questions. We use our database technology to capture this information
2) On-going analysis on questions that are coming up. On a regular basis we look at the questions we are being asked
3) Act on the findings. We report our findings and provide recommendations to our clients for how we can act on these insights

How are you gathering insights and input from patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers? Are you using these insights to design more meaningful programs? Please share your experiences, successes, and challenges.

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New Options for Building Relationships with Healthcare Providers

Read a new article in PharmaVOICE magazine about new options for gaining access to physicians

In the last few weeks I’ve had numerous discussions with sales and marketing executives in life science companies about new ways to reach healthcare providers (particularly physicians) to build relationships and provide educational information on their products. This is always a topic of interest with our clients, but the frequency and intensity of these conversations has increased dramatically.

There is an article in the March 2012 issue of PharmaVOICE magazine (it’s available on-line now) that shares best practices on gaining access to physicians . The article shares findings on a study conducted by Temple University, and presented at the International Health Economic Association Congress in June 2011, on the ramifications of decreased access on new product uptake and prescribing. The findings provide evidence that patients are at greater risk when physicians are slow to prescribe beneficial new medications. Additionally, the majority of physicians feel that sales representatives are an important source of product information.

We all know very well the changes in how healthcare is delivered, including the emphasis on seeing more patients and limiting access to sales representatives. Now, with the Temple University study, we have data that supports what we also know is true, that sales representatives play a critical role in educating healthcare providers about new products. So, the important question is this…How do we deliver valuable education to healthcare providers within the reality of the physician’s office?

The PharmaVOICE article provides several recommendations, and the three listed below jumped out to me. They include…

1) Physician targeting—I prefer to think of this as segmentation, which is identifying healthcare providers that have a relationship with the company and/or brand and those that don’t. The healthcare providers that do have a relationship with the company and/or brand need on-going interactions with sales representatives. Healthcare providers that do not have an existing relationship with the company and/or brand need to be introduced to the company and/or brand and perhaps a relationship can be cultivated. With healthcare providers that don’t have an existing relationship there are several options including tele-detailing and e-detailing that can be effective in cultivating relationships with them.

2) Provide relevant information—this is commonly referred to as “providing value”, and “value” is uniquely personal to each individual. What is most needed is to understand the individual healthcare provider, their practice setting, the types of patients they treat, and the challenges they face in practice. To be successful a relationship must be established, and the sales representative must provide small “nuggets” of valuable information with each interaction.

3) Healthcare providers are becoming more comfortable seeking out information on their own. Commonly used secondary channels are product and company websites, tele-detailing, e-detailing, and mobile applications. The key take-away is to have multiple opportunities for healthcare providers to seek and gain information at their convenience and according to their own preferences.

There are a number of options that can be implemented to increase access to healthcare providers. At PhoneScreen and AMAC we provide pharmaceutical call center solutions that help you build relationships with patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers. Tele-detailing programs are an effective tool for providing information. Tele-detailing programs are complementary to field-based sales representatives and can be designed to provided 24/7 access to information and clinical expertise at the convenience of the healthcare provider.

Take a few minutes to review the PharmaVOICE article . After you read it, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it. Additionally, what new initiatives are you considering or implementing to expand healthcare provider access to product information and company representatives?

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Re-Writing the Winning Formula for Patient Support Programs

BMS Orencia “One Patient at a Time” Campaign Receives Two Coveted Industry Awards

Helping patients begin and stay on a treatment requires support and helping them overcome their concerns with the treatment. Today, more than ever, there is a need to support patients and help them adhere to treatment. To date, patient support programs haven’t been very engaging. They mostly provide generic product and disease information and “reminders”.

I want to share with you a unique program we have had the pleasure of working with Bristol-Myers Squibb on for Orencia (abatacept). The campaign is called "One Patient at a Time” and it puts the patient at the center and tailors the materials to fit each patient's individual needs. The campaign has shown positive results including patient requests to their doctors for Orencia increased by 55%, conversion rates increased by 30%, and communication engagement rates are 17 times higher than historical rates.

Orencia is indicted for patients with moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis (RA), which because of its autoimmune nature can make it difficult for healthcare providers to choose the right treatment option.

This comprehensive campaign is the first dynamically generated, full dialogue enabled relationship marketing program. There are two critically important components of the program including…

* Orencia Care Counselors, which are healthcare-trained professionals, that stay in touch with patients throughout the program
* Customized direct mail communication materials

Through the course of a patient’s journey, the Orencia Care Counselors partner with patients and provide personalized guidance. The Orencia Care Counselors will address…

* Patient concerns
* Patient questions
* Coaching patients on how to talk with healthcare providers

Direct mail materials are an important component of the program. The imagery, content, tone, and delivery order of the communications materials are aligned to the treatment cycle of each individual patient. This alignment maximizes the impact of the program. "The One Patient at a Time” campaign is extremely comprehensive, creative, and provides the information needed to understand the safety and efficacy of the product, empower patients to have effective conversations with their healthcare providers, and the support to ensure patients successfully begin treatment. To date there are more than 17,000 variations of the communication materials.

Recently Bristol-Myers Squibb was awarded with a PM360 Trailblazer Award 2011 for the Best Direct Mail campaign for Orencia: “One Patient at a Time”. Additionally, Bristol-Myers Squibb received a Gold MM&M Award 2011 for Best Use of Direct Marketing to Consumers.

The Orencia: “One Patient at a Time” campaign is a collaborative effort between Bristol-Myers Squibb, Proximo Gen, BMStudio, and AMAC. AMAC provides Orencia Care Counselors, which are healthcare-trained professionals, to stay in touch with patients throughout the program.

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Essential Elements for Impactful Patient Adherence Programs

Keys to Patient Adherence

 My last few posts have focused on the opportunities increased patient adherence offers. I hope I have provided convincing information and that you are committed to either developing a patient adherence program (if one does not exist) or to bolstering an existing patient adherence program.

Here are my top 7 critical success factors for implementing successful patient adherence programs:

1. Elevate patient adherence to be a driver in your business. Patient adherence rates are low (on average are around 50% to 65%) and opportunities abound to increase patient adherence and retain patients on therapy.

2. Establish clear goals for your patient adherence program. Patient adherence is part of a product’s value proposition. Ideally, consider patient adherence early in product development. If your product is on the market that’s OK. It’s never too late to support patient adherence.

3. Appoint an owner. To ensure success there needs to be someone driving the program and accountable for its results whether in house or as an outsourced program manager.

4. Understand the patient journey. Patient adherence is a complex issue and requires a thorough understanding of the root causes of discontinuing treatment. Develop a holistic view of the behaviors and challenges in treating the condition.

5. Segment patients based on their desire to manage their condition. Use the Patient Activation Meter (PAM) to help you identify the “right” patients. Next, focus on these patients and their needs. Spend your time and resources reaching out to the “right” patients. For more information on the PAM, please review an earlier blog post on this topic.

6. Engage patients through enriching experiences. Understanding the patient journey, and those patients that want help, allows your program to provide more effective and meaningful materials and support services. Meaningful engagement drives compliance and adherence.

7. Collect data and continuously improve the program. Analyze the data and act on the learning’s to improve the program. Patient adherence programs have the potential to provide win:win solutions for patients and manufacturers.

This list was developed based on my experiences working with AMAC to develop effective communications and patient adherence programs for our clients. AMAC offers a wide-variety of patient monitoring devices used in the home setting, and provides 24/7 call center and click-to-chat support services to provide information and educational materials to patients, providers, and payers.

Do you agree with these critical success factors? Do you have additional ones to share? Join the conversation and share your questions, challenges, and best practices.

- Lou Shapiro

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24/7 The New Norm: HCPs Require Instant Access to Reps and Information

Read a new article in PharmaVOICE magazine about how call centers provide a vital link for HCPs and life science companies

The February 2012 issue of PharmaVOICE magazine is available on-line. In the Showcase Feature section they discuss outsourcing R&D, manufacturing, and sales functions to 3rd-parties to reduce in-house costs and accelerate timelines. I contributed a brief article on how pharmaceutical call centers build relationships with healthcare providers and patients. The primary benefit of a call center is to provide on-demand and as-needed access to information and company representatives on a 24/7 basis.

Pharmaceutical call centers can support the life science industry to…
• Provide on-demand support to answer questions from healthcare providers and patients
• Increase patient adherence to treatments and clinical trials
• Supplement field-based promotional activities
• Boost patient recruitment and referral for clinical trials
• Process sample requests
• Set appointments between sales representatives and healthcare providers

Download the PharmaVOICE article. After you read it, I’d like to hear your thoughts on it. Also, are you currently using partners to outsource your information and sales activities? If so, in what areas are you doing this? What challenges and hurdles have you run into? Are you happy with the results you’ve seen?

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Trends in Patient Adherence Programs: Personalized Information and Experiences

The search for valuable information is a common theme for healthcare providers and patients. In the last several blog posts I have focused on healthcare providers, and in this post I’ll shift to patients. Patients are looking for information to help them manage their health conditions, and the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries have the knowledge to be a trusted source of information. Patients are using online resources and networks for healthcare education and support. This is driving the demand for personalized materials and educational experiences. Patients no longer will settle for materials developed for the masses. Rather, they demand information that is specific to them, their condition, and their needs.

How do you deliver this customized information? Options abound, and what is most important is that manufacturers recognize their role in developing effective patient adherence programs. Some of the newest trends being used in patient adherence programs include:

• On-demand live call center support

• Online resources through websites and social networking sites

• Click-to-chat support through websites

• Mobile sites and applications

• Patient monitoring devices

The heart of a successful patient adherence programs is communication. And pharmaceutical call centers can be an invaluable resource to provide 24/7 access to live operators to answer questions, send educational materials, and follow-up with patients to remind them about appointment and prescription refills. For more information on selecting a pharmaceutical call center partner, please see this earlier blog post.

Online resources play an important role in effective patient adherence programs. Online resources such as websites, click-to-chat support, and social networking sites are ideally suited to provide individualized and targeted information based on patient characteristics. However, many pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies are reluctant to move quickly and deeply into providing online resources given the lack of regulatory guidance, concerns about patient privacy and well-being, and the cost of implementing these programs.

Additionally, mobile applications are being used more often to access information, communicate alerts about a particular product, and provide reminders to patients about appointments and refills.

There are numerous patient monitoring devices available for use in the home setting. These monitoring devices provide physicians and healthcare providers with timely information on a patient’s condition. This information allows physicians and healthcare providers to make immediate changes, if necessary. Let’s think about this for a minute. The technology exists for physicians and their healthcare staff to monitor the blood glucose levels, heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, and temperature of patients in their homes, and to make changes that could have a profound impact on their health today and in the future.

The future of patient adherence is centered on empowering patients to take an active role in managing their conditions. Patients need information, support, and guidance from their physicians and healthcare providers. This can be an overwhelming task for physicians and healthcare providers given the demands on their time. Opportunities exist for pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies to provide information and educational materials.

At American Medical Alert Company (AMAC), we are in a unique position to support patient adherence programs. AMAC offers a wide-range of patient monitoring devices that can be used in the home setting, and provides 24/7 call center and click-to-chat support options to share information and educational materials with patients, providers, and payers. We have helped numerous clients design and build successful patient adherence programs.

Please share your thoughts on the emerging trends in patient adherence programs. Are you considering, or have you tried any of these new tools? If so, what are the factors driving your decision to use a new tool or not? Join the conversation and share your questions, challenges, and best practices.

Visit our website for more information on patient adherence and other topics.

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Patient Adherence: Focus on the Patient

Happy New Year! I don’t know about you, but I had great holidays and I’m charged up and eager to build on the new opportunities 2012 will surely bring.

In my blog post before the holiday break I recommended that marketers in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies think about patient adherence as a significant driver for their business. I feel strongly that well-developed patient adherence programs provide win-win-win solutions for all stakeholders.

Valuable patient adherence programs focus on the patient and meeting their needs. As with most programs, the first step is to think strategically about patient adherence. Ideally, this would be early in the development of your product. However, your product may be well into clinical development or post-launch, and it isn’t too late to implement a patient adherence program. I’d ask you to think of these key factors to determine if patient adherence could help your product:

• Treats a chronic conditions
• Dosing or administration challenges
• Low rates of patient retention
• Good patent life (ie, 5 years or more)

I think of patient adherence as a part of the product’s value proposition. To design successful patient adherence programs, focus on the patient and understand their behaviors and challenges in the disease-state your product is used. Understand what behaviors they exhibit and why. Once you have this understanding you can develop targeted and personalized approaches to support patients. Ultimately, provide targeted resources online, via mobile devices, and in print. This targeted approach builds a sense of value, commitment, and trust with patients. Additionally, if patients are able to overcome challenges they will stay on therapy, which provides them with a greater quality of life, and decreases healthcare costs.

Are you wondering where to begin? We start by mapping the patient journey. Despite individual behaviors and attitudes, patients generally follow a typical path in managing their condition.

Judith H. Hibbard and James J. Cunningham have developed the Patient Activation Meter (PAM). This is the first instrument that measures the skills, knowledge, beliefs and behaviors that combine to create an activated patient. It indicates that patients progress through four (4) stages as they become activated. PAM can be used to assess how well interventions work. The authors of the PAM have measured and identified characteristics for patient activation based on population and health status characteristics. The Center for Studying Healthcare System Change has published this information on their website. This is a good resource for gathering information on patient activation in various disease states.

The PAM tool can help to identify the key areas where support is needed and identify patients receptive to help and support. This information ensures time and money are spent on patients that are receptive to help. The goal is to focus on the patient and understand their journey so you can develop a patient adherence program that uniquely supports their needs.

At American Medical Alert Company (AMAC), we are in a unique position to support patient adherence programs. AMAC offers a wide-range of patient monitoring devices (many of them are used in the home setting), and provides 24/7 communication services to share information and educational materials with patients, providers, and payers.

Share your experiences with patient adherence programs. What key insights have you learned along the way? What tools have you used to understand the journey patients are taking in treating their condition? Have you been able to leverage this knowledge to develop more impactful and effective materials and patient adherence programs?

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Patient Adherence: Focus on the Patient

This post has been relocated to:
http://phonescreenblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/patient-adherence-focus-on-patient.html

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Patient Adherence: The Next Significant Opportunity for Manufacturers

In previous blog posts I have discussed in general the changes happening in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. The general theme of “do more with less” is strong and continues to grow stronger. In previous blog posts I have discussed the opportunities with complementary sales channels such as tele-detailing, e-detailing, and web advertising to physicians. Another significant opportunity for the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries is increasing patient adherence to treatment.

All chronic conditions have high rates of patient noncompliance. It is commonly reported that patient compliance to therapy averages around 50 to 65%. According to a recent report by Capgemini Consulting, titled “Patient Adherence: The Next Frontier in Patient Care,” only 69% of patients fill their first prescription. Only 43% of patients that start a prescription therapy are continuing that therapy 6 months later. This has a profound impact on future healthcare costs as these patients typically have additional healthcare issues in the future related to earlier non-compliance. Supporting patient adherence is a win:win:win situation—patients gain with better health and quality of life, payers decrease their expenses treating healthcare issues that arise from non-compliance, and companies retain patients on their products.

Patient noncompliance is a significant problem for the industry. Think of the benefit if companies could increase retention to 65% or 75% of patients continuing therapy at 1 year (rather than 6 months as Capgemini found).

As I looked at the Capgemini Consulting report, I kept thinking about the expenses pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies spend to acquire new patients, and the sales to be gained by retaining more patients on treatment. It is a commonly accepted principle in many industries that it is cheaper to retain customers (patients in this case) than it is to acquire new ones. This principle needs to be more of an emphasis in our industry. Pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies must take action to develop and implement successful patient adherence programs. Not doing this is like leaving money on the table, and that is NEVER something you want to do.

The first step is to think strategically about patient adherence early in the development of your product. Think of this as part of the product’s value proposition. At PhoneScreen we’ve worked with a number of clients to develop and implement their patient adherence programs through 24/7 live operator support to answer questions, send requested educational materials, and call to remind patients about appointments and refills. There are several essential elements to an effective patient adherence program, and we’ll discuss these in a future blog post.

For now, I’d like to challenge marketers in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device companies to think about patient adherence as a significant driver for your business. In my first post in 2012 I’ll share my thoughts on how to develop the strategic direction for your patient adherence program. In early-2012, we’ll explore current trends in patient adherence programs and essential elements for successful patient adherence programs.

Do you currently have a patient adherence program for your product? If so, how successful is it at retaining patients? If you haven’t implemented a patient adherence program, why haven’t you? I’d love to hear about the hurdles or challenges you face in setting up/maintaining your patient adherence program.

Until 2012, best wishes for very Happy Holidays and a healthy and prosperous New Year!


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Valuable Insights into Selecting the “Right” Pharmaceutical Call Center Partner

Lou Shapiro

In my last blog post titled” The Secret to Successful Brand Planning”, I shared two recurring questions that are on many pharmaceutical marketer’s minds as they plan for 2012. The first question on every marketer’s mind is how to “get more impact with fewer budget dollars?” My advice is to engage service providers that have expertise and systems to support your marketing and clinical programs effectively and efficiently.


As a service provider focused on providing call center services to support physicians’ practices, hospitals, and pharmaceutical/biotechnology/medical device companies, we are experts in building relationships with healthcare providers and patients. We can efficiently provide information and materials healthcare providers and patients need, and answer their questions. Engaging service providers adds value and streamlines your initiatives.

A major concern pharmaceutical marketers and communications professionals have is how to select the “right” pharmaceutical call center partner. This is a great question, and there is no easy answer to it. I recently recorded a Podcast through PharmaVoice on how pharmaceutical call centers can support pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies. Also, we recently published a White Paper on selecting the “right” pharmaceutical call center partner. The White Paper offers 9 areas to be evaluated when you are looking to identifying the “right” potential partners. When used together, these two resources will help you identify the “right” partner for your program and company.

To listen to the podcast, please click here. Additionally, if you are interested in a copy of the White Paper, please click here to request it. Please let us know what you think of these two resources—are they helpful or not? Also, would you like to have additional resources in other areas? If so, please let us know what areas interest you.

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The Secret to Successful Brand Planning

Lou Shapiro

It’s the time of year when we all begin work on brand plans for the upcoming year. I’ve been talking with clients about the challenges and opportunities they face with their products. Two questions continue to come up in these conversations. The first is “how can I get more impact with fewer budget dollars?” The second question is “what should we do on-line?”


There is an obvious answer on how to get more impact with less budget dollars. Engage service providers that have expertise and systems to support your marketing and clinical programs effectively and efficiently. As a service provider focused on providing call center services we are experts in building relationships with healthcare providers and patients. We can efficiently provide information and materials and answer questions. So, my advice is to engage service providers that add value and can streamline your initiatives.

Regarding on-line initiatives, I ran across an interesting study conducted recently by FiercePharma and Sermo (the on-line physician-only social networking site). Sermo launched a study to their members to understand physician thoughts on pharmaceutical dinner programs, their preferred topics at these events, and preferences for alternate programs (ie, peer-reviewed journal articles, on-line presentations, on-line e-details, teleconferences, and meetings with company Medical Science Liaisons).

A few words of caution with the survey, it gathered results from 100 Sermo members, which is a relatively small sample of their 120,000 members. Also, keep in mind that if the respondents are using Sermo they are most likely more engaged in using social media and on-line resources. However, what struck me about the results was that nearly 63% of respondents are looking for information through non-traditional channels such as peer-reviewed journal articles (21%), on-line presentations (ie, 20%), on-line e-details (ie, 14%), and teleconferences (ie, 8%). Physicians are certainly looking to new channels to meet their information needs, and they seem to prefer channels where information is available 24 hours/day and 365 days/year. My recommendation is to implement 24/7 information programs including call centers and on-line information through company, product and disease-state websites.

As you are planning programs for healthcare providers, the FiercePharma and Sermo study also have results on information physicians are interested in on disease awareness, drug information, and practice management topics. I thought the topics were interesting and have outlined them below.

Disease awareness topics including…
• Autism
• Bipolar disorder
• Common dermatologic conditions
• Dementia
• Multiple sclerosis
• Pain management

Drug information on…
• Comparative data
• Latest clinical trials
• New anti-platelet and anticoagulant treatments
• Technical updates vs. the drug’s availability and utility

Practice management issues including…
• Business issues and how to improve the practice of medicine
• Financial planning
• Opting out of Medicare and third party-payers
• Practice management
• Reimbursement issues

Here is a link to the study results if you are interested in reviewing them in detail.

Addressing physician’s interests in your marketing and clinical affairs programs will provide value to physicians. Ultimately building value for the company and product in the minds of physicians, and creating opportunities to interact around meaningful topics. At the end of the day that is what successful brand planning is all about.

Would you consider developing programs on the practice management topics identified in this post? If so, did you encounter challenges from your legal counsel? I’m interested in learning more about the challenges your brand is facing. What are some of the new and unique programs you’re considering? If you have a question on brand planning, please share them.

Visit the PhoneScreen Website at www.phonescreen.com.

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Pharmaceutical Call Centers: Their Value and 9 Ways to Select a Partner

Lou Shapiro

My experiences with healthcare communication companies have focused on utilizing call centers to support physicians’ practices, hospitals, and pharmaceutical/biotechnology/medical device companies.

There are many services call centers can provide. In particular, call centers provide pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with additional resources to reach healthcare providers and patients, as well as answer questions from these important audiences.

Some of the newer applications for pharmaceutical call centers are…
• Boosting patient recruitment and referral for clinical trials
• Providing tele-detailing support to healthcare providers
• Increasing patient adherence to treatments and clinical trials

My Top 9 recommendations for a selecting a call center partner for your clinical trial recruitment, physician tele-detailing, and patient adherence program needs…

1. Identify companies with an established track record in providing call-center support to the pharmaceutical/biotech/medical device and healthcare industries. Research the services they provide, and ensure they match with your needs

2. Understand staff backgrounds and experiences. What is the educational background and training of a typical operator? Do they have nurses, pharmacists, and physicians on staff to handle calls? If so, typically when do these individuals interact with callers? Based on your program specifications and goals what are their staffing recommendations?

3. Evaluate processes and work flow. Each service provider will have a workflow for how their calls are managed, as well as how their interactive voice response (IVR) system operates. Ask to see these documents and for an explanation on how these documents would be established and used in your program

4. Ask about metrics for measuring service levels and abandonment. Service levels measure the percentage of calls answered in a certain amount of time. Abandonment refers to the number of callers exiting the call queue before speaking with a live operator. Which metrics are most relevant to you depend on your program design and goals

5. Understand the quality assurance programs the service provider has in place. Successful service providers will have clearly defined programs that include formal documented call monitoring, peer-to-peer call monitoring, self-audits, and mock audits. Additionally, understand how this information is provided back to the operators and what on-going training is provided

6. Understand the technology the service provider uses, whether it is validated or not, and whether the system can be integrated with your customer relationship management or adverse reporting systems

7. Ask about compliance with FDA regulations and codes. The applicable FDA regulations are highly dependent upon your program goals and needs. Take the time to understand which regulations apply to your program. Ask the service provider which ones they comply with

8. Know the locations of the call centers. If operators are used from outside of the US, understand the types of services they provide, what languages they are fluent in, and their training on US regulatory and compliance issues

9. Understand hours of operation. Do these complement your program’s needs?


Call centers are an extension of your company and brand. Call centers provide an effective and efficient way to build relationships, answer questions, deliver content and create “good will” for the company and product. I encourage you to take the time to thoroughly research and evaluate potential service providers.

Have you used a pharmaceutical call center? What areas do you feel are most important in selecting a partner for your call center needs? Please share your questions and comments.

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