Today’s doctors prefer online pharma education

By Patrick Homer and Craig Nestel

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The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of major behavioural changes among its customers – the physicians who prescribe and patients who are treated. For physicians, the long-term effects of the managed-care model have fully taken hold, resulting in primary care physicians seeing an increase in the number of patients and average consulting time they spend with those patients per day. As for patients, they are no longer just recipients of healthcare in which “doctor knows best”; they actively participate in their consultation. This trend has stemmed from the increased awareness provided by prescription pharmaceutical direct-to-consumer advertising, the ease of health-related Internet searches, and participation in health-related social networks.

Physicians spending more time with their patients ultimately means that they have less time available to spend with pharmaceutical sales representatives. A recent study revealed that the average rep/doctor interaction is a mere one minute 38 seconds and that the length continues to shorten. At the same time, physicians still need – and want – education on the latest and most innovative products on the market.

The physician population is getting younger, and we are now seeing the first generation of doctors who are extremely comfortable consuming information via the Web or even mobile devices. These “e-physicians” have grown up in an era of on-demand service and prefer learning on their own time (usually after hours) and on their own terms (they decide the content that they are interested in, not the drug maker). These factors are driving a fundamental shift in Web-based content as never before. 

This channel shift presents an even greater challenge to pharma in measuring physician satisfaction with content and ultimately in measuring the ROI of this channel. Many companies only recently have stepped up to the challenges of attempting to coordinate direct sales and marketing efforts. Having achieved that with various levels of success, they now face the more daunting task of understanding the physician’s Web experience. 

So how can pharma measure this new channel of engagement where the physician interacts with a screen instead of a live rep? Enter SAS® for Customer Experience Analytics. With its capability of providing deep insight into the physician’s journey on a pharmaceutical product Web site (as opposed to impersonal statistics such as impressions, unique visitors and clickstreams), pharma can now truly understand an individual physician’s experience: Which product is a specific physician interested in? Is he looking at side effects or efficacy? Does he download the latest clinical research? Does he prescribe following the Web site visit?

These are the questions that could not be answered before. Now, with SAS Customer Experience Analytics, pharma has the opportunity to shift gears in the intelligence they can get from their Web sites – and ultimately create a unique channel with unique insight into the physician and, for the first time, attempt to measure the return on investment from their Web channels.

Bio: Patrick Homer is the SAS Life Science Sales and Marketing Practice Principal. Craig Nestel is a solutions architect and business solutions manager for SAS’ Health and Life Sciences Global Practice.