Remote communication is nothing new, but it became the mainstay last year and has rightly made pharma and its associated agencies think differently about how best to reach and bring value to healthcare professionals (HCPs).

The key word here is value. What do HCPs want? How can we get messages across and meet the needs of our audience? The companies that get remote communication right are the ones that truly listen and adapt, focusing on more than merely format and channel. Something so simple and yet so often forgotten in the desire to communicate our agenda: don’t start from what you want people to do, start from what people want to do. More than ever before, successful medical affairs teams are adopting ‘outside in’ thinking; planning carefully around what will resonate with the customers in order to meet their needs first.

In the first few months, COVID-19 had accelerated the digitisation of customer interactions by years, and with 70% of HCPs being digital natives, adopting new technologies for better remote communication should not present a barrier. What we need to get right is the content.

The great news is that content delivered remotely can be really individualised based on audience insights and need. This is commonplace outside pharma and needs to become so in our world.

Ultimately audience understanding will expedite the evolution of how we deliver content and define the right channels and connection methods. Already it is more user-led, intuitive and easily accessible than ever before.
  
It has also led to heightened contextualisation by, for example, creating platforms that dovetail authentic patient and HCP journeys to provide education relevant to each intersection, thereby increasing understanding, demonstrating benefit and improving the patient experience.

The last 12 months have thrown up new challenges for HCPs: severe lack of time, lack of connection with peers, the need to support patients better and deal with patient backlog, not to mention dealing with the unpredictable consequences of COVID-19 – all areas in which focused pharma support can make a real difference while building a channel for improved ongoing communication.

The reliance on remote communication is here to stay. The more we listen, understand and put our audience first, the better the new normal will be for everyone.