HCP engagement was one of the few buzzwords during the initial days of the Pharma 4.0 revolution. This is because it refers to the methodology of how a pharma company fosters relationships with HCPs. And that is a vital factor to the overall industry as it maintains a balance between patients, companies producing drugs, and HCPs in a connected triangle, leading to the overall patient outcome. 

The methodology of HCP engagement involves identifying opportunities to communicate medical data and engage with HCPs (comprising nurses, doctors, and pharmacists). Now, the opportunities for engagement are wide and cover diverse channels involving in-person physical HCP engagement, such as medical congresses, educational programs, and networking meetings. With the latest advancements in digital technologies and access to high-speed internet, engagement is happening through digital mediums like emails, social media, and websites. These are also contributing to a holistic HCP experience. The significant benefit of digital media is that it responds promptly and effectively to the challenges and needs of HCPs (as per their preferred mode, i.e., texts, video, etc.) and their evolving content consumption habits. 

In this article, we will take a deep dive into the challenges of HCP engagement (since it’s a complex industry) along with their solutions. We will also discuss the upcoming trends in HCP engagement strategies and how it is shaping the industry towards a sustainable pharma. 

Current Hurdles of HCP Engagement in the Pharma Sector & Their Subsequent Solutions

• Target Audience Expects a More Customized Approach
  
  Gone are the days when pharma marketers relied on mere push texts for HCP engagement relative to a drug or service. And incorporating multiple channels is challenging for marketers because they risk losing the valuable time of human resources delivering irrelevant messages that are not even being read. 
  
  Customization of texts is the only solution for HCP engagement and conversion. Pharma companies these days are striving to know more about the HCPs that they are targeting with AI-based analytics. Most of the big-short companies are collaborating with companies like Newristics- A heuristics-based messaging solution. 

• Struggle in Digital Adoption
  
  Since the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, pharma businesses have been trying to shift online. And marketing pharma marketing campaigns also followed suit. Even as of today, most enterprises are finding it hard to shift from traditional methodologies. 
  
  There are no other alternatives to adopting digitalization; rather, accept it upfront. The appropriate way is to try them out and adjust as the operations fall into place. For instance, an HCP engagement platform might be in the form of an advanced CRM. But from the perspectives of both medical experts and employees, they will be facing issues in learning it in the initial days. Hence, they will be reluctant to use it at first. Ultimately, they will understand how time-saving and value-driven the platform actually is. 

• Technological Singularity and Volatile Market
  
  It is gradually becoming challenging to build a marketing strategy that would remain efficient for years. Social media clouds the bans, erratic searching engine upgradations, the eruption of new technologies and media- these and several other challenges cut off the link between pharma marketers and HCPs. 
  
  Companies should tackle this matter by experimenting few similar-motive technologies and staying flexible in marketing. They should be monitoring the tech trends, as one disruptive technology might act as a game-changer. This will also help them tremendously to sustain in the competitive market. 

• Stringent Regulatory Ecosystem
  
  It is quite understandable that the whole pharma industry is bound by stringent compliance factors from the very beginning. Each enterprise’s services, products, and marketing content have to be in compliance with the regulatory guidelines for the sake of patients’ safety. And somewhere down the line, there’s ethics involved, which is a very sensitive factor to consider. The content, for that matter, statutorily has to pass through an MLR review. 
  
  There is no shortcut to bypass the regulations, but companies can find new ways to make content production seamless with modularity. Collaboration with life science companies can help streamline the approval process to back up HCP engagement strategies. 

• Challenge in Forging Trust with HCPs
  
  With the advent of digital-based communication post-COVID pandemic, companies are striving to devise new ways to engage HCPs. The challenge is to get their attention span by a bigger amount, and one part of overcoming it calls for forging trust. 
  
  Pharma enterprises should consider the following principles to strategizing their communication:

• Accountability

• Patient-centric approach

• Adherence to industrial and ethical standards

• Transparency in all functionalities and

• Quality assurance
  
  They should also practice to represent their brand value in person and be there for HCPs at different pharma events. This increases the trust factor multifold. 

• Increasing HCP Attention Span
  
  We have discussed how forging trust with HCPs matters in pharma and how it forms a part of gaining their attention. Now, there are other ways to enhance their attention span as well, and that notion- customization, in a nutshell. 
  
  It is high time that pharma companies start to implement tailored, unique, and high-end content, and there is no other way. A great chunk of it is the intel of what the HCPs are seeking and what they refrain from. Enterprises should improve customization and interactivity, which is AI-powered since it takes less time and offers predictive analysis based on HCP behaviors. In the end, companies should streamline and scale content production with high-tech content management systems. 

• General Data Protection & Privacy
  
  Managing patient feedback, sensitive data, and abiding by privacy compliance, particularly with regulations driven by HIPAA, makes up a substantial challenge. Maintaining secure communication channels is vital for outreach efforts. 
  
  If your pharma company deals with personal data  (there is a high chance), ensure that the respective US-based and global regulations are adhered to, which includes asking for explicit consent to collect and process data, periodic security audits, employee training, data breach response planning, and proactive collaboration with regulators. 

Conclusion

While we have discussed the solutions and techniques on how to overcome the current HCP engagement challenges in pharma, companies need to understand that forging sustainable relations with HCPs and patients correlates significantly. This is because patients are the end users of the pharma pipeline, and the sole directive is to improve patient outcomes. So, a patient-centric solution is all that matters as the industry heads towards Pharma 5.0

Incorporating advanced technologies like AI/ML models and Big Data will play a significant role in HCP engagement, and it will be interesting to see how it pans out in the subsequent years. Since customized texts and contents are becoming more important for the pharma companies, it is the best moment to collaborate with companies like Newristics to drive their conversion rate and levelling up their HCP engagement span.