By Barbara Kay, President

Nonstop discussions surround how to improve the attendee experience at conferences.

At the recent Healthcare Convention & Exhibitors Association (HCEA) Healthcare Convention Marketing Summit, held Jan. 19 in Boston, a panel of physicians discussed how they value medical meetings and conventions. It was very clear — and nothing new to the audience, comprised of associations, pharmaceutical and device companies and suppliers — that first and foremost, physicians and health care professionals attend these conferences for education and science. They also attend to have the opportunity, a privilege in some cases, to meet face to face with the researchers presenting late-breaking clinical trials, have meaningful discussions with leaders in their therapeutic areas and reconnect with former colleagues and classmates.

With this strong vocalized priority on learning, the discussion led into what draws physicians to the exhibit floor of a meeting? First, every Summit panelist emphasized how important it is to have unopposed hours in the schedule. Take heed: Meetings that do not offer those unopposed slots likely will see less traffic on the exhibit floor.

Professionals are drawn to the exhibitor floor to learn about new products, devices, techniques and studies. They do not want to be swarmed upon by personnel when entering a booth. They want to leave an exhibit floor with knowledge — for example, white papers, new product information, CDs and DVDs — or patient-facing materials that they can use in their practice. There was keen interest in a DVD one of the panelists uses in his practice. This DVD, portraying a real-life diseased heart and then one that has been treated, illustrates to patients the benefit of a prescription medication.

Physicians indicated that at booths, they are receptive to receiving materials to help communicate with patients. This, of course, extends the learning.

Attendees also are interested in continuing the exhibit floor learning experience beyond the physical meeting. Planners should consider the numerous digital options for accomplishing this:

• Digital posters that are easily accessible 24/7
• Exhibitor-featured QR codes that can provide product information
• Virtual tote bags containing white papers, product information and demonstrations that physicians can reference anytime following the meeting
• Meeting websites that feature vital links connecting to studies and sessions, plus resources for all things meeting-related

Last, but not least, the panelists discussed how you best could communicate with health care professionals at meetings. Attendees want an integrated approach. They expect to receive information digitally and in print. Oftentimes at meetings they collect masses of printed information, which they save to read later, share with a colleague or file away for a patient. Attendees count on having presentations, videos and product information available digitally. They expect information to be streamed on smartphones via a mobile app and — with more than 30 percent of physicians using tablets — they expect information delivered there as well.

Extend the life and learning of the meeting. Planners should examine their resources for accomplishing this through multiple channels. Inquire into which vendors can offset the incurred costs through a turnkey approach.

What steps will you take to extend the learning from your conference?
 

By Robin Pearson, Director of Continuing Professional Development and Patient Education

When working in medical marketing communications (be it professional development or patient education) perhaps one of the more difficult issues to understand is the actual educational needs and gaps among your audience.

That’s why it’s critical to reach out to acknowledged experts to find out what the real needs are well before we develop communications and marketing strategies. The insight that national thought-leaders can provide on both sides of any issue is invaluable. And frankly, these folks are not only approachable, but for the most part, eager to share their insight into what’s important and needed by their colleagues — especially community clinicians.

Let me give you an example. Recently, I was developing a proposal for education about a newly approved drug that, based on everything I had read and “overheard,” was considered a game-changer in the therapeutic category. As I did my literature search and began developing strategies around the knowledge I had accrued from years of working in that space, I also started calling some national thought-leaders, whom I was pretty sure would confirm my opinion. And many of them did.

There was one academic and practicing clinician, however, who had a different point of view. “I know that everyone thinks this is the best thing since sliced bread. But I’m not quite as enthusiastic,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of practical questions that I think we need to answer before we adopt this therapy wholesale. For instance, how will we transfer patients from their current therapy to this new one? And, should we transfer all patients? What happens to those who need to stop taking the drug, if for instance, they need surgery? We know what to do with the older drug — but there’s no data about these issues with the new agents. And I’m quite concerned about patient adherence…”

These were just a few of the comments my friendly thought-leader expressed — comments I hadn’t heard from other folks. My conversation with him caused me to rethink the strategy that we were developing, and make sure that the needs assessment and proposal included his concerns and suggestions.

Thought Leader Select, a company that assesses medical experts within a host of therapeutic areas for biopharmaceutical and health-care industries, notes on its website, “Relationships with thought leaders in medicine help biopharmaceutical companies continue understanding and addressing the illnesses and diseases impacting all of us. To advance medicine and improve public health, medical professionals and biopharmaceutical companies must partner together, and they should base those partnerships on high levels of therapeutic expertise, an understanding of patient needs and superior research insights and capabilities.”

While we shouldn’t always respond to the last, loudest voice, it makes sense — when crafting a strategic marketing message — to take into account strongly expressed concerns, even when they may be the minority viewpoint. And, in my opinion, we always should speak with a wide variety of professionals who may express these different points of view, and acknowledge them as part of any needs assessment. Because when creating education programs for physicians and/or patients, who’s talking matters. 

How have you restructured your projects after consulting with experts?

By Robin Pearson, Director of Continuing Professional Development and Patient Education

Ongoing studies in education have shown that there are as many different types of learners as there are different types of media. That would suggest that in trying to reach health care professionals with information about disease-state management, specific agents or classes of agents, incorporating new therapies into clinical practice, innovative therapies, etc., that it is critical to include many different types of media and deploy them synergistically, which is pretty much the definition of custom publishing.

Sometimes, learning styles can be related to a particular physician specialty. Dermatologists (and surgeons, plastic surgeons, etc.) are likely to be kinesthetic, or tactile learners, those who learn best through touching, feeling and experiencing. They remember best by writing or physically manipulating information. For these types of health care professionals, demonstrations and/or interactive programming is likely to be more effective than a more passive approach. That being said, however, there are still those dermatologists who like nothing more than to hunker down with a hefty journal article — well-illustrated of course.

Then there are the visual learners — those who generally think in terms of pictures. They often prefer to see things written down in a handout, text or on an overhead. They find maps, graphs, charts and other visual learning tools to be extremely effective (lots of ophthalmologists and cardiologists in this category). They remember things best by seeing something written — print custom publications are made for these kinds of learners.

Last but not least are the auditory learners — theose folks who learn by listening. They are most drawn to lectures, discussions and reading aloud. For these health care professionals, there are webinars, podcasts and, of course, live presentations (emergency specialists, neurologists, pulmonologists like these especially well).

In the best of all possible worlds, you would incorporate all three learning styles into your marketing plans — apportioning budgets to ensure that each learning style is adequately covered. According to a recent survey conducted by Junta 42, saavy pharmaceutical marketers are trying to do just that, using on average eight different tactics to reach their audience (which includes not only health care professionals, but patients as well — who also follow this pattern of different learning styles). So even though folks in the health care field reported responding most strongly to live events, when looking at the mix of media required for synergistic marketing, planners are incorporating a multitude of different types of vehicles to reach this audience:

• Social media (excluding blogs): 79 percent
• Article posting: 72 percent
• eNewsletters: 61 percent
• White papers: 43 percent
• Webinars: 42 percent
• Print magazines: 42 percent
• Videos: 41 percent

And a number of other tactics as well.

As the millennials (those born between 1981 and 1999) begin entering clinical practice, using a mix of tactics will become even more important. Research has shown that these learners tend to be multitaskers and perfectionists, who have been raised to expect extra help and additional resources when faced with educational struggles, according to the Internet Journal of Medical Education.

Keeping generational differences and media preferences in mind when trying to engage a mixed age and specialty market will help ensure a rich, synergistic campaign in the future, proving that learning styles matter.

What tactics will your company use when trying to market to medical professionals?
 

By Robin Pearson, Director of Continuing Professional Development and Patient Education

Whether due to changes in health care insurance, availability of specialists within far-reaching communities or long-term relationships, today’s family practitioners frequently are seeing patients with conditions that might otherwise be referred to specialists.

A recent survey of American Academy of Family Physicians’ (AAFP) membership found that office visits to family physicians (FPs) represent about 23 percent of all patient visits (Facts About Family Medicine, AAFP), although FPs represent only 12 percent of all physicians, according to Medical Marketing Services Inc.

What kinds of diseases and patients are today’s FPs seeing most frequently? Everything and anything, as noted in the WHO Report, which tracked patient categories seen by family doctors over a two-day period. These included patients with the following:

• Hypertension: 83.4 percent of patients seen
• Emotional problems: 80.2 percent
• Diabetes: 77.2 percent
• Severe pain: 67 percent
• Cardiac problems: 60.4 percent
• Dermatologic problems: 58 percent
• Asthma and allergies: 51.8 percent to 57.7 percent
• Osteoporosis: 40.7 percent

In addition, FPs saw a host of other issues, including gynecologic problems, menopause, fibromyalgia, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions more usually seen by specialists.

The 2010 National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey, which looked at physician office use, confirms that the most frequent diagnoses made by primary-care physicians include hypertension, acute upper respiratory infections and diabetes.

That makes the family doctor ripe for — and increasingly in need of — information and education regarding therapeutic management of these types of patients. Information that ranges from recently updated guidelines for treatment; new therapies and drugs, including pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interactions; potential complications and adverse events; multidisciplinary management of specific disease states; and a host of other important information that will help them better interact with and improve patient outcomes.

Where will this information come from? While placing high value on CME educational courses, these family doctors indicated the most important and valued sources of information come from medical journals (81 percent), medical meetings (64 percent) and websites (59 percent).

This leads to the conclusion that medical marketers need to reach family doctors via a combination of media: live, print and digital — and that these clinicians are both hungry for and are interested in information about a wide variety of disease states.

As we pointed out some months ago in our blog about CME versus nonaccredited education, while these doctors value the credits, their primary reason for reading their favorite medical journals is to access clinical information. We think that need for clinical information — especially about the management of heretofore “specialty” diseases, can and will extend to custom content — especially when that content is sponsored or endorsed by a respected medical association.

How do you plan to connect with and help teach family practitioners across all media types?
 

By: Robin Pearson, Director Professional Development and Patient Education 

As more rigorous guidelines for accredited continuing medical education are put into place, the process for both pharmaceutical and medical-education companies attempting to provide scientifically rigorous, evidence-based, unbiased information has become onerous.  The numbers of grants submitted into the ozone of electronic grant submission sites increases; the number of grants supported decreases — suggesting that there is less material available for professional development. How do you fill the breach?

Our suggestion is to work with respected professional medical societies to provide quality education, specifically designed for their members. With the imprimatur of the association, members can be assured that the materials are scientific, credible and fair-balanced, even when supported by a pharmaceutical company.

There still is an appetite for such education, according to a study conducted in 2010 by the Custom Content Council, which found that “branded content initiatives are considered by marketers to be more effective than any other leading form of advertising and marketing.”

So, what is “branded content?” The Content Marketing Institute says branded content/custom publishing/content marketing is the “creation and distribution of educational and/or compelling content in multiple formats to attract and/or retain customers.”

The Custom Content Council study further shows that 29 percent of average overall marketing, advertising and communications budget funds were dedicated to branded content. This is the second greatest ever (first was 32 percent in 2009), with content spending reaching the second highest level ever at nearly $1.4 million per company.  

Even with this large spend, savvy content marketers found challenges, as illustrated below:

So, as custom publishers, our challenge is to satisfy this appetite for branded content by developing credible, quality programs that meet the needs of both pharmaceutical companies and health care professionals.

We think we’ve provided at least one solution with a new series, implemented with several top professional medical societies, called Clinical Reviews. These print and digital publications are designed to provide both a resource and reference for doctors and other health care professionals. Sponsored by medical societies and supported by some very smart pharmaceutical companies, we’re finding that in taking the high road — addressing disease state management, providing case study challenges, offering fully-referenced answers to questions HCPs might encounter — these branded content programs appeal to a broad range of specialty professionals who keep coming back and asking for more.

The physicians are receptive, because the content is sound — and there is no effort at a sales pitch. The supporters are intrigued, because it enables them to partner with professional associations and keep their names top-of-mind with their customers. And the associations are delighted to be able to continue to provide value to their members.

So, done in the right way, branded content benefits everyone — without the angst and aggravation of CME paperwork. Proving once again that when the content is rich, it is the education that matters.

How are you using branded content in new and engaging ways?

By: Robin Pearson, Director Professional Development and Patient Education

For too long, too many of us in the medical education space (accredited and non-accredited) have focused on getting information out to clinicians — doctors, nurses and allied health professionals. While providing these professionals with important, evidence-based information about gold-standard disease-state management and emerging options for treatment remains critical, we may have been missing a vital cog in the educational spectrum — the patient.

The September 2010 issue of PM360 featured an article that drives home the importance of patient education in the disease-management continuum, emphasizing the value of point-of-care, patient-centered materials, noting that 52 percent of consumers take action when they see an ad at point-of-care. “Taking action” might be defined in a number of ways, the most significant of which may be prompting a dialogue between patient and physician, which may lead to a specific treatment decision.  Confirming this idea is a more recent article in Med Ad News just last month, which notes that an increasing effort toward patient education may first affect the patient-physician interaction, with the resulting treatment approach being heavily influenced — and perhaps even changing — as an outcome of patient input. 

Savvy bio/pharmaceutical executives, managed care directors and physicians are paying attention to this trend, as indicated by a survey recently completed by Quintiles, noting that “32 percent of bio-harm leaders believe that patients will be very or extremely influential in the marketing success or failure of new drug therapies during the next five years.”

Patients are indeed heavily invested in staying or getting well — 71 percent agree that it’s important to be well-informed about health issues, according to the PM360 article. They want to be involved in the decisions about their health care management. That means more education about disease, potential treatments, clinical trials, adherence to treatment, insurance and more. And it means providing that information in a format that is easily accessible, easy to understand and geared toward patients and their caregivers in a way that empowers them to engage in actionable dialogue with their health care providers, creating a partnership between patient and physician. Rather than feel confronted by the “danger” of a little knowledge, physicians are beginning to embrace these better-informed patients — with the average office visit becoming shorter, educated patients can help make those interactions more impactful.

It may require a bit of a learning curve, but it is becoming clear that increasing market share for many biopharmaceutical companies may depend upon providing information to patients at the point-of-care, where and when it is most likely to be acted upon — in the physician’s office. Because that’s really where education matters.

What is your opinion of the better informed patient/doctor relationship?

By: Robin Pearson, Director Professional Development and Patient Education 

In the world of health care professionals, the words “medical education” have come to be associated with programs and activities that are “designated for credit,” which very broadly means they follow rules and guidelines set forth by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education.

In the world of the pharmaceutical industry, anything not “designated for credit” is lumped into the category of “promotional,” which again very broadly, suggests that anything with that label is to be considered a “commercial” for a particular drug. To be labeled “promotional” is to be tarred with a very biased brush.

To my mind, there is at least a third category (actually there’s a fourth, as well, which include publications … but that’s an entirely different topic). That category is nonaccredited professional education. This type of education, especially when sponsored by a professional medical association, follows almost all the same guidelines as CME, but lacks the credit that accompanies the former.

How important is that credit? Not very, according to some recent studies. The 2009 Annual Physicians’ CME Preferences Survey has been looking at this very issue for more than 17 years. This independent survey of more than 1,500 physicians found that while almost all of the respondents participated in CME activities primarily for the credit, 72 percent indicated that the key driver for their participation was not the credit, but to obtain the latest clinical data regarding patient treatment/management options, and 71 percent said they participated in order to validate their own treatment strategies. Clearly, the most important draw to clinicians is the quality of the education — not the need to earn credit, as evidenced by an overall drop in the average number of credits earned by physicians in the 2009 survey.

We’re in a time when any medical education funded by pharmaceutical companies is looked upon suspiciously — designated for credit or not. What we should be looking at, I think, is the value of the education, rather than the funding, or its designation. And I’m not alone. At a recent resident’s symposium, a well-regarded physician and chairman of a university hospital medical department, was asked by a resident (who was attending a program funded by a pharmaceutical company that did not include CME credit), if they shouldn’t regard education and clinical investigations funded by these companies suspiciously.

The physician’s response couldn’t have been clearer. “Whether funded by pharmaceutical companies or not,” he suggested, “you must look closely at the data. Was the study well-designed? Was it appropriately powered? Was it analyzed and reported with scientific rigor? If you can answer yes to all of those questions — then it doesn’t matter where the funding came from.”

I suggest the same is true of professional education. If the material is accurate, scientifically rigorous and evidence-based, then whether designated for credit or not, it will be valuable to health care professionals. It is the education — not the credit — that matters.

What are your thoughts on the debate over credit?