The COVID-19 crisis has significantly impacted physicians’ practices; but how and to what extent? Physicians have been managing significant workloads, while learning on the fly how to navigate and setup virtual meetings. Maintaining high levels of patient care while minimizing in-person interactions has also been challenging.
Remote detailing for pharma can be optimized based on the results from our 5-minute online survey conducted in the fall of 2020. Some questions that we sought to answer with this study conducted with 339 Canadian physician members of the MD Analytics healthcare panel were:
- What proportion of remote interaction invites are accepted among GPs and SPs?
- What are the reasons behind the preferred type of remote interaction?
- What are the barriers to videoconference interactions?
- What are the components of an ideal videoconference interaction?
Our findings showed that physicians from Ontario, Quebec and West are accepting only half or less of the invites they receive from pharma sales reps for a videoconference call. However, outside of in-person interactions, it is still considered the preferred means of interaction (though email and phone interactions also have potential).
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Pros of videoconference used for remote detailing for pharma: mimics in person interaction; easy to access; can share materials. The videoconference platform of choice for physicians is Zoom.
Pros of phone: easy to access; typically shorter; a less formal pharma remote detail.
Pros of email: easy to access; can reply when they want; a less formal pharma remote detail.
In-person pharma detailing interactions continue to differentiate themselves through familiarity and the ability to provide samples.
In order for videoconference meetings to succeed, it will be important for the sales rep to be concise and maintain the physicians’ interest.
Our infographic displays the findings in a visual format that is easily digested to inform remote detailing for pharma. Feel free to email this infographic to your colleagues or share on social media.
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