The New Way to Build a Sustaining HCP Relationship

Published in

People Company

10 min readSep 20, 2022

The trust gap between HCPs and pharma companies

Days are long gone when pharma sales reps could easily get their job done through enjoyable chat, agreeable nodding, and firm handshakes. Nowadays, health care professionals (HCPs) are hard to access, let alone get your message through. HCPs’ dissatisfaction with pharma companies can be seen through the following data:

59% of survey respondents (HCPs) believe that manufacturers care more about their profits than their patients.
In an Accenture survey, 64% of HCPs said they’re getting too much digital content from pharma, and 65% said at least one pharma company had “spammed” them since the pandemic began.
70% of HCPs said that pharma representatives do not understand their requirements completely.

HCPs simply don’t trust people from pharma companies, and the trust wasn’t broken in one day. Since the day intrusive marketing strategies happened in pharma, HCPs have been constantly bombarded by repetitive information, irrelevant data, and canned pitch. Every campaign is traffic-centered. They are like disposable burner phones that serve their goal for only one-time. There is no connection, only a one-time call. They stand for short-sighted strategies, not long-term values. Every time an HCP clicks on a promotional email, meets with a medical representative (MR), and goes to a campaign site, they feel their time is wasted and their callings demeaned by the traffic-center profit-driven marketing methods.

Pharma companies should stop giving out sales messages that fuel the feeling of mistrust and start revolutionizing their way of engaging HCPs. There should be less selling, and more telling. Short-sighted marketing strategies are doomed to be short-lived. Long-term values can only come from long-lived connections. The only way to fill the current digital HCP engagement gap for Pharma is to build a new digital space to foster strong, long-term relationships with HCPs. Restoring trust is the first step to building a sustaining HCP relationship.

Omnichannel HCP engagement is not enough

Trust is not easy to build, especially when the world is changing so fast every day. When the pandemic happened in 2020, we were forced to stop relying on in-person visits as the most effective method to engage the HCPs. During the pandemic, 65% of meetings were held virtually. New ways of communication were adopted — emails, phone conversations, remote meetings, social media, etc. Most things went digital, and it is not likely to go back. A survey shows that only 50% of HCPs expect to resume in-person congresses.

The post-pandemic world welcomed omnichannel HCP engagement as the savior to turn things around. It has its pros, but it is not enough to truly remove all the pain points and rebuild a long-term HCP relationship. Firstly, there is no unified touch point for HCPs to access all the information they need, hence potential friction is created and time wasted. Moreover, the content that should be educational and informative is all scattered and bound to be repetitive. HCPs won’t be able to have a systematic educational content base and it will be hard for them to build knowledge. Lastly, omnichannel still happens in the public domain and it won’t be easy to collect and analyze the data generated, thus proposing difficulties for self-evolution based on customer data. There is a big chance that omnichannel HCP engagement will ultimately become a short-lived buzzword rather than a truly impactful approach to connecting HCPs and pharma companies. It may work for a while in a narrow range, but won’t be able to fuel pharma companies for the long run.

The new solution to HCP engagement

Let’s get our facts straight. HCPs don’t want a swamp of seemingly engaging information, what they truly need, is a seamless support experience. They don’t want a single-time traffic-driven campaign. They don’t want to juggle between different channels for repetitive information or spend one hour digging out one piece of valuable info. Instead, they want more value-added interactions and educational content that shows a great understanding of their situation and the needs of their patients. They want meaningful connections with their peers and professions. They want more personalized and responsive services from pharma companies.

What’s the truly effective solution to sustaining the HCP relationship then? The answer is to build a unified pharma-branded digital community to engage HCPs, therapeutic experts, and MRs. The benefit is unique. Having an all-in-one virtual community will help cut through the existing digital noise and remove all friction for more meaningful and value-driven dialogues between HCPs and pharma companies, thus restoring a sense of trust and boosting belonging, which in the end rebuilds a sustaining HCP relationship. To serve its goal, this community should prioritize three pillars — education, engagement, and service. Next, we’ll take a look at how to enhance each one of them.

The three pillar community model

Education

HCPs understand that education is vital for their own professional development and the benefits of their patients. Education for HCPs is content-based. However, HCPs don’t need any more promotional content to waste their time. Instead, they want easy access to medical content on safety, efficacy, and real patient evidence. The content should also align with their own practice, and cannot consume a big chunk of their time. Now, how can you become a trustworthy source of education for HCPs then? You should create a sufficient amount of the following three kinds of content.

Contextual content

Contextual content is in pressing need. Therapeutic experts and MRs should work together to create extensive and up-to-date contextual content for HCPs. Vague, general, brief drug promotions and product information simply won’t suffice. In fact, as much as 70% of HCPs find it difficult to locate valuable information beyond simple medication information. Also, a survey by Indegene showed that 62% of HCPs feel “overwhelmed” by product-related promotional content they receive from drugmakers. Meanwhile, about 70% of physicians agree that to gain their trust, it is crucial that pharma brands provide educational resources rooted in clinical trials and scientific information.

Instead of creating more general content, pharma companies should be giving out more contextual content, thus achieving a kind of reliability and restoring trust. Include user case studies if possible. HCPs are evidence-driven professionals. You have to really know your audience to deliver good results.

Bite-sized content

Digital fatigue is a thing. It is especially pervasive among burnout HCPs. They don’t have time to sit through a two-hour surgery video. Also, the content overload will only make it worse to regain HCPs’ trust. The bite-sized content should be action-oriented and target a specific goal. Formats may include short articles, infographics, not-too-long videos and bite-size e-learning sessions, etc. A survey shows that 89% HCPs search for disease-related information online at least once a week, and their preferred formats include short-form/bite-sized articles of less than 1000 words, as well as downloadable research articles, papers, and presentations. Such content is proved to be more direct, flexible, and engaging.

Bite-sized content can save HCPs time and energy. It builds affinity, too. When Google and other websites serve as such a powerful search engine for quick answers for HCPs, pharma companies have to create high-value and easy-to-digest content, or they will run a risk of losing audiences.

Personalized content

The best kind of content is the one that speaks to the unique needs of an HCP. In the age of information overload, HCPs are struggling to sift through an ocean to get down to the bottom of their problems. Delivering tailored content to each HCP can make a huge difference. It shows understanding, care, guidance, and above all, support.

So, how do we present HCPs with the needed information and insights at the right time? Here is when AI-powered adaptive training comes in handy. AI software could pick up HCPs’ browsing habits and track their learning data, thus composing a unique learner journey, which contributes to personal recommendations of future content. When the educational content that pops up each time manages to cater to an HCP’s focused need, it can speak to him or her on a personal level, which undoubtedly strengthens the connection.

Engagement

A community can’t exist without engagement. Engagement means connection and bond. It is the prerequisite of affinity and a sense of belonging. It drives a community to survive and thrive. We can achieve better engagement through the following means.

Responsiveness

Building a tightly-knit HCP community is imperative for boosting engagement. HCPs are demanding enhanced responsiveness of pharma brands on key topics. HCPs not only want reliable content, but they also want it fast.

By creating a digital space to involve health care peers, therapeutic experts, and MRs alike, HCPs can easily access trustworthy content, which can save them a lot of time checking the credibility of the source of information. Also, they will have more opportunities to achieve direct conversation with peers and available experts and get the answers they need in a quick way. This truly removes tons of friction and empowers HCPs with the right kind of resources.

Autonomy

Another way to engage HCPs is to build a social learning environment and boost UGC. In this case, HCP-generated content. Research has shown that one of the top ten reasons why HCPs use social media is to share their knowledge with others. HCPs have a need to share, and they are already doing it on social media platforms like Twitter and Linkedin. In 2019, the number of verifiable HCPs on Twitter was 600,000. On Linkedin, the number was over a million. Every day, HCPs actively seek and share medical-related content. Having a unified platform for HCPs to share insights will boost the possibility of in-depth exchanges and better engage the niche audience.

Content-wise, HCP-generated content can add limitless value to the already existing content base, as it is authentic and authorized enough. Motivation-wise, having a space where HCPs can share their experience and insights can boost their sense of ownership and responsibility. Overall, an inclusive learning community is vital for the sustainability of your pharma brand.

Influence

The last means to better engage HCPs is to leverage digital tools to help HCPs build their own reputation. As mentioned above, HCPs are already sharing healthcare-related content on social media every day. Enabling them to build a personal brand and expand their influence can help them reach more patients, peers, and experts, which is good for their career development and serves well as a big intrinsic motivation, thus increasing engagement.

Service

Service is the focus of stakeholders’ experiences in the community. Imagine your community to be a bucket. Education would be the base, while engagement forms the walls. Together they decide the capacity of your community. Service is like the handle on the bucket. To have a focus-driven service means you can be passed around. It helps you build a reputation. In other words, it defines the influence range of your pharma brand.

Pharma to HCPs

To bridge the trust gap, pharma should not be providing an all-over-the-place and one-size-fits-all product pitch. They should be giving highly responsive and spot-on services to HCPs. For instance, pharma companies could pair each HCP with an MR, serving as a learning buddy. The MR will be responding to HCPs’ problems with fast answers, providing reliable insights, finding needed resources, organizing group learning study sessions, etc. Only through this kind of focus-driven service can HCPs’ experience be evaluated.

Another way to achieve responsiveness is to implement well-trained AI assistants in the unified branded digital community. Compared with human assistants, AI assistants have a bigger base of knowledge graphs and can always be online to provide insights to HCPs on various topics. Instant information and communication thus can be ensured. Research has shown that computers are better at finding patterns and generating answers, which enables AI assistants to link diseases and symptoms, and give out medical recommendations at a fast speed. On the other hand, AI assistants and chatbot services can take over easy medical questions such as dosage guidelines, thus enabling MRs to address more complex inquiries, which lowers the response times for HCPs’ confusion.

Pharma to medical institutions

Medical institutions can also be engaged to build their own training and learning communities on the same branded digital platform, which involves two kinds of service. For one thing, pharma companies can provide high-value educational content and an all-in-one digital platform for medical institutions to easily access. At the same time, pharma can forge a connection between different institutions, especially those in underdeveloped areas and the ones with more resources. HCPs from smaller institutions can have virtual ward rounds and hospital visits on the same branded digital platform. To sum up, through building institution space within the branded pharma community, medical institutions of different sizes can all benefit. Combined, these two kinds of services will definitely create a better-enabled workforce, enhanced healthcare expertise, and medical institutions with bigger social influence.

A sustaining HCP relationship goes a long way

To sum up, it is our firm belief that to truly engage HCPs, we need to rebuild trust between HCPs and the pharma industry. To completely bridge the trust gap between pharma and HCPs, we need to ditch the mindset of traffic-driven marketing strategies and start building a long-term HCP relationship. We need to shift our focus from product to people. The strength of an HCP relationship should not just be measured through the number of emails opens, rep calls, click-throughs, and site visits. Instead, it should be valued through trust, personal connections, and rapport. This calls for a new design model — a model that ensures a needs-focused experience that highlights education, engagement, and service. Building an all-in-one branded digital community is the most efficient way to do so.

Covid-19 has accelerated the process of revolutionizing our way of engaging HCPs. Yes. We made some adjustments but they are far from enough. In a highly digitalized world and the ever-changing future, only the pharma companies that know enough to view each stakeholder as an individual and proactively seek to deliver a personalized experience can truly make a difference.

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