Future Of Pharma-hcp

By Author: Giselle Fernandes
Total Articles: 23
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ZING Powers HCP Engagement
Against the backdrop of changing policies, mounting regulation and skyrocketing costs, pharmaceutical companies are investing heavily in their organization’s digital transformation. Everything from how R&D is conducted to how brands connect with HCPs and patients is being reinvented. And for pharmaceutical sales operations, improving prescriber engagement is the top priority. But unfortunately, many of the current solutions ignore one very important thing: what prescribers want when it comes to the pharma-physician relationship.
During a recent P360 masterclass1, double board-certified physician Dr. Mandira Mehra confirmed that, from a doctor’s standpoint, communication with pharma reps has become inefficient. Although an integral part of a physician’s work, she noted that the process of accessing or contacting reps can be very frustrating.
“Physicians want engagement at their own pace, at their own time, and they want to initiate it,” said Dr. Mehra. “I still have a stack of business cards with the information of 20-30 different pharmaceutical and medical device reps. ...
... I cannot think of any other industry that would do that—if I order food or call a cab, everything is streamlined and really done through the phone.”
Dr. Mehra isn’t alone when it comes to wanting a more convenient, digital-first pharma-to-physician relationship. Physicians now prefer digital communication to all other modes of engagement. In a survey conducted by Accenture, 87% of providers2 reported a preference for virtual, or a mix of virtual and in-person, meetings with pharmaceutical reps. In addition, the online HCP community Sermo found that 67% of its users3 felt pharma companies could improve communications with physicians and provide better support for prescribing decisions with on-demand access to reps.
That’s why we developed the ZING Engagement Suite. ZING is a comprehensive unified communications as a service (UCaaS) solution that enables compliant HCP engagement by enhancing existing communication channels with tons of features, including text messaging, two-way voice and video calling, onscreen collaboration and form sharing, inbound communications with QR code scanning, artificial intelligence (AI) assistance, signature capture, easy access integrations and more.
How intelligent bots and QR codes can improve HCP engagement
Strengthened with several enterprise-grade features, ZING is a robust unified communications as a service (UCaaS) platform that enables pharmaceutical sales teams to engage with HCPs via multiple modalities without barriers. In addition to all the features listed above, ZING enables sales teams to deploy intelligent bots and use QR codes to make communication easier. Here’s how those features help improve HCP engagement.
Intelligent bots: ZING can power pharma reps with automated responses to inbound requests (e.g., co-pay card requests). And when needed, reps can seamlessly transition back to themselves. The bots can even be personalized for each territory, rep and brand.
Intelligent bots improve HCP engagement by:
• Removing compliance issues
• Giving HCPs instant access to what they want, when they want it
• Eliminates missed follow-ups when out of the office or out of reach
• Removing white space issues
• Simplifying access to reps and important drug information
QR codes: ZING makes it easy for pharma reps to provide HCPs with QR codes, which is a type of barcode that can be read by a smartphone. Like links, QR codes enable instant text, call or video communication. The QR codes can even be personalized for each brand. And they can be programmed to connect directly to the appropriate rep.
QR codes improve HCP engagement by:
• Removing the need for business cards, which are easily lost
• Making it easy to keep contact information up to date, even with turnover, etc.
• Making it easy for HCPs to remember what drug goes with which rep
• Streamlining communications
• Eliminating the need for emails, phone calls and in-person visits
Compliance enabled HCP communication
83% of the pharmaceutical executives we surveyed said compliance is their top priority. The reason being is that compliance-related violations cost companies millions of dollars each year. But with the ZING, avoiding compliance issues is a breeze. All the messages, digital assets and replies sales teams send to HCPs can be preapproved by compliance and preloaded into the system. That way, nothing gets out that isn’t already approved.
In addition, ZING’s intuitive user portal, which can be branded and completely customized, offers administrators a simple way to track individual messages, link clicks, digital asset views and more. And all of ZING’s data can be stored for up to 10 years and pulled into a report for legal upon request. The data from the system also integrates back to sales profiles in existing CRM systems.
ZING makes HCP engagement easy
With the ZING, pharma teams can exchange compliance-enabled two-way unified messaging with healthcare professionals without barriers. There are no apps for end-users to download and there are no subscriptions for them to deal with. To HCPs, ZING offers a seamless, hassle-free experience that’s seen as nothing different than their normal method for receiving texts. To do this, ZING uses native text messaging on an HCPs iOS or Android device with pre-built integrations with major CRMs.
ZING also makes it easy for pharma IT teams in terms of data management and integrity for things like territory alignments, roster changes and other specific data integration needs. Compliance can track every communication, end-to-end. And managers can measure activity and results with ZING’s powerful dashboards.
To learn more about all of P360’s innovative products, visit P360.com.