Strengthening engagement with HCPs needs deep understanding not digital bombardment

Speed dating has a woeful record for successful unions, with participants feeling empty by the imperative to cram life stories and achievements into three breathless minutes.

What should be an open door to meaningful exchange can easily become a forced encounter, frantic with repetitive conversation lines that have no relevance and little chance of creating lasting connections.

Pity the healthcare professional (HCP) who now faces a clamouring queue of suitors made louder by digital strategies that should make engagement easier, but often hit like a hard-sell hailstorm. It is little wonder that most are restricting pharma team access or retreating from meetings, either face-to-face or digitally.

Research has identified a critical gap between HCPs’ hunger for knowledge and learning, and the pharmaceutical industry’s ability to deliver relevant, tailored content. It should be a perfect match.

A survey from Deloitte reported that the vast majority of HCPs want trusted interactions to help their decision-making and stated: ‘Stakeholders want coordinated, integrated interactions with their life sciences partners, but HCPs and customers often experience redundant engagements due to poor internal communication, such as multiple visits from the same company in a week.’1

A 2024 study by Veeva Systems revealed that HCP engagement with field force and online channels has fallen to 53%, with 62% of those interacting with three or fewer companies.2

A further indicator of the challenge was raised in a British Medical Journal commentary in response to the NHS in England pledging to invest £10bn in AI to improve healthcare. It highlighted: ‘Doctors have also warned that, despite the billions being put forward, the evidence base for these tools actually delivering benefits remains murky and the AI transformation must ensure there is still space for doctors to learn and grow.’3

To capture the hearts of HCPs and establish meaningful relationships, AI and its agentic qualities need to conquer the promise overload by proving they have the capabilities to listen, understand and deliver tangible benefits.

“Field force access has been significantly limited across all geographies, but the industry reaction of providing more emails, more outreaches and involving more teams targeting individual HCPs is counter-productive and misses the underlying needs of the profession,” says Chris Moore, President, Europe Veeva Systems, a global leader in cloud software for the life sciences industry.

“HCPs want to understand new treatments and how those treatments can be applied to their patients when they are prescribing for the first time. They want answers when they need them and they want to have a relationship with those companies where they see value and where every interaction builds off the last.

“We know their time is scarce and that every interaction has to count, so the challenge is making those interactions valuable without overloading them.”

A huge majority of HCPs are now digital natives who feel comfortable navigating and using innovative tools, and they are equally at ease moving to new sources if they cannot find the right content at the right time. The task of synchronising with the shifting nuances of their needs has already surpassed the capabilities of traditional call reports, observes Chris.

He highlights that, although structured picklists capture the basics of an interaction, they miss the richer detail from conversations with HCPs, such as the questions they have, their sentiment or specific barriers to treatment. This is where, he says, Veeva technology enables field teams to compliantly capture this context using voice or free text, generating ‘Commercial Evidence’ that helps make subsequent engagement more precise.

“Physicians do not want to talk to the industry if it’s a non-value-added conversation,” he says. “But if it’s about new treatments that help their patients or content that educates them, gives them a voice or provides access to training, then they really want to speak to industry.

“There is a need for organisations to be more dynamic in how they interact with physicians and move away from one-size-fits-all engagement to understanding what matters to individual HCPs. This is where AI can make a real difference.”

Although there is a concern spectrum around AI, Veeva believes its systems can support and augment teams, using richer customer context to make human engagement more valuable. “One of the challenges is that customer engagement has traditionally been fragmented across different functions,” observes Chris. “Sales might see a physician as its customer, marketing sees them as a segment and medical sees them through another lens. But ultimately, it’s the same person interacting with one company.

“If you aren’t working from a shared view of the customer, you don’t understand the individual and you are broadcasting to them, not connecting with them. Technology can help create a more human experience where every interaction builds on another and responds to their needs.”

AI is providing more opportunities for organisations to learn and respond, and Chris cites the example of a company that could not understand why prescribing rates were falling until the cause emerged through an HCP conversation with its Agentic Call Report.

“HCPs explained that they had run out of the companion diagnostic tests needed to prescribe the medicine. By quickly capturing that insight, the company was able to identify the issue and explain that there were alternative testing kits approved for use,” says Chris. “Prescribing rates returned and, importantly, patients got the right treatment. This is what we mean by ‘Commercial Evidence’ – capturing real-world context from interactions that could otherwise go unrecorded and using it to identify and resolve barriers.”

AI is hailed as the salvation for stressed healthcare systems across Europe and, providing it can satisfy clinical safety and privacy concerns, the European Commission – which introduced the European Artificial Intelligence Act to establish clear developmental guidelines – believes in its transformative capabilities. Its Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare paper stated: ‘Advancements in AI technology present unprecedented opportunities to revolutionise healthcare, making it more effective, accessible and economically sustainable. By fostering the integration of AI through appropriate policies, we can enhance equity, improve care and ensure that new technologies, treatments and medicines benefit society at large.”4

Chris echoes that belief and comments: “We are on the cusp of a dramatic change. We are witnessing a real step change in the quality of information provided by large language models (LLM) and the levels of investment from the big tech platforms is unprecedented. Leaders, such as Penny Dash, chair of NHS England, have indicated the huge role AI can play in how patients and HCPs access information and guide treatment pathways.

“But you need trusted content that can be found and understood by those LLM models. You must be relevant at the point of conversation between the physician and the patient, and you’ve got to keep information focused on the questions HCPs and patients are actually asking.

“So, instead of static websites, you can have compliant, conversational digital experiences that give HCPs immediate answers using approved content. Those interactions may start digitally with an automated response, but they can also lead to human follow-up when that’s what HCPs need.

“If HCPs are prescribing in an area for the first time, they need answers specific to their needs. The digital and human experience don’t have to be separate.”

He concludes: “We are using AI to make engagement more precise, rather than just creating more of it. Agentic capabilities can help us better understand what an individual HCP needs so that both digital and human interactions are more personalised. When you connect those interactions across channels, HCPs get the answers they need when they need them, helping the right medicines reach more patients.”

References
1. https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/industries/life-sciences-health-care/articles/customer-engagement-strategies-pharmaceutical-industry.html
2. https://www.veeva.com/eu/resources/veeva-pulse-field-trends-report-united-kingdom-q1-2024/
3. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/42431687/
4. https://health.ec.europa.eu/ehealth-digital-health-and-care/artificial-intelligence-healthcare_en

Danny Buckland is a freelance journalist specialising in the healthcare industry