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?

View Blog 

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences

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.

View Blog  

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences 

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

View Blog 

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences 

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?

View Blog 

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences 

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.

View Blog  

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences 

Adding Value to Your Pharma Sales Model

Several of my early blog posts focused on the value of tele-detailing in providing information to healthcare providers. With all of the pressures on the industry we must find new, more cost-effective channels for communicating with healthcare providers. Tele-detailing is an effective promotional channel, and it complements the daily activities of field-based representatives.

Physicians and healthcare providers are demanding valuable interactions with company representatives. One channel for providing valuable interactions to physicians is through tele-detailing programs. These programs provide physicians and healthcare providers with an efficient and knowledgeable means to learn about pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device products and to obtain answers to their questions at their convenience. In November 2010, Cegedim published a report on the promotional spending trends in new media (including tele-detailing, internet detailing, and web advertising) from US pharmaceutical companies. They found that 49% of the spending in new media is on tele-detailing programs.

I recently recorded a podcast through PharmaVOICE on how tele-detailing can help pharmaceutical, biotech, and medical device companies provide value to healthcare providers. Also, we recently published a white paper on this topic. The White Paper offers suggestions for how tele-detailing programs augment and complement the activities of sales representatives, how to determine if tele-detailing is right for your product, and how to shift the role of sales representatives from salesperson to an “Advisor.”

Please let us know what you think of the podcast and white paper — 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.

View Blog  

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences 

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?

View Blog  

View website for Tunstall AMAC Life Sciences