Memorandum
We recently discovered an infographic from Decision Resources Group showing how HCPs perceive a lack of quality, practical digital support from pharmaceutical companies: 43% of surveyed HCPs said no company provides quality digital support, and many providers are downright suspicious of website content.
Only 26% of surveyed urologists found pharma websites credible (this was shocking to us), while 62% of rheumatologists felt that website info is just product ads (also extremely surprising). A striking 88% of cardiologists access resources on smartphones, but half of them don’t use mobile pharma sites because they can’t easily find what they want (we did very much understand this, which is more a commentary on the web). These interface issues impact patients: 54% of oncologists prescribe based on “beyond the pill” services (available apps to support medication adherence, as one example), but only 26% think it’s easy to access these resources.
Pharmacy and Therapeutics committee members, who make formulary decisions for hospitals and payers, exhibit a similar level of distrust: 53% consider information provided by pharma “biased,” though 55% of payers said HCP-focused websites influence their decisions, according to a separate infographic. We were unable to find any details on sample size or data collection for these statistics, but they universally highlight a gap between the pharmaceutical industry and HCPs/payers – pharma isn’t perceived as meeting the digital services needs of providers and payers in their daily work.
As the Decision Resources Group points out, these findings present an opportunity for pharma to drive real improvement in the way providers find and use information about new therapies. While independent data sources offer certain advantages, pharma has the means to give HCPs what they’re looking for, and we think there’s potential for a win-win situation here: If pharma can build resources based on what HCPs find useful – thus improving patient and provider experiences – they’re likely to see a return in their bottom line.
-- by Ann Carracher, Payal Marathe, and Kelly Close