This month’s published document for The Orange Pages examines why medical professionals do not regularly use electronic technology as an information access and management tool and how pharmaceutical marketing researchers can help create “e” resources to best meet their needs.
Looking at the “e” medical information landscape, there are two major reasons why physicians tend to shy away from “e” technology. The first is that in most cases, the information that the practitioner needs is not organized in one central system, but rather partitioned off into unrelated electronic sources. Many of these sources, moreover, do not reflect actual information needs that physicians have, nor are they organized the way physicians think or in a user-friendly format.
The second reason relates to costs for “e” information sources and who should foot the bill. Pharmaceutical companies have stepped up to the plate in this regard in the past, investing a great deal of money and time in a variety of “e” marketing projects, such as the Medical News Network and iPhysicianNet. For one reason or another, these programs failed and the pharmaceutical companies that funded them were left with bad tastes in their mouths about the “e” space. At the same time, physicians have seen the failed attempts at “e” and have become skeptical and unwilling to expend the time and energy necessary to install and learn new systems that are going to fail or not be supported.
With all the “e” technology currently available, the fact that physicians, their patients and other key stakeholders in health care continue to benefit so little from it is unfortunate at best. At worst, this lack of willingness or ability to use “e” in support of health care significantly detracts from the quality of the health care delivered and received. Instead of sitting back and letting a bad situation get even worse, the pharmaceutical industry must come together in a joint effort and take action, using pharmaceutical marketing research, to create optimal “e” resources in the near future. The article outlines a number of proactive steps that pharmaceutical marketing researchers, both those working directly for pharmaceutical companies and those employed by the agencies that serve them, can take to make this happen.
To download the complete February 2008 discussion on whatever happened to “e” in pharmaceutical marketing, please click
here.
The monthly issue-based discussions that we publish in this newsletter
can also be distributed to you in hardcopy format via a complimentary
subscription-based resource we publish for our clients called The
Orange Pages. The Orange Pages is intended to serve
as a living, breathing resource of “Information, Education and
Issues Exploration for Today’s Pharmaceutical Marketing Researcher”
that we hope will be read with interest and kept within reach for
ongoing reference.
The format is a three-ring binder designed to hold packets of content
that we will develop and distribute on a variety of topics. Content
packets will come to you in an easy-to-identify (and appropriately
colored) orange envelope and be delivered on a monthly basis. The
materials will be three-hole punched for convenient one-click assembly
into your binder.
If you would like to receive a complimentary copy of The Orange
Pages binder, and get on our distribution list for monthly addendums,
please fill out the form below.
