I recently came across a great article talking about marketers need to decode the EHR for Pharma. It’s been really interesting to see the evolution on pharma’s relationship with EHR software. No doubt they’ve all always seen a tremendous opportunity, but they’ve all treaded lightly because of the possible undue influence on a provider.
The article did make an interesting comparison between how pharma approaches EHR and how they approached social media in the past:
Their pervasiveness has raised eyebrows throughout pharma. What’s happening with EHR “reminds me of the early days of being in the digital center of excellence [DCOE],” Flaiz recalled. “Social was exploding. It belonged to corporate comms, brands, PR — there wasn’t anyone who didn’t think they owned it.”
The same thing is happening now with EHR, but with a different cast of characters: trade, pricing, medical affairs, R&D, marketing, and the DCOE — all want a piece, she said.
I also love that the article frankly states that agencies will focus on placing banners and messaging and that marketers will need to focus on a much deeper approach to marketing pharma in an EHR. In fact they outline the other EHR Opportunities for pharma that pharma marketing professionals should consider: clinical decision support, integration with the hub and patient-assistance programs, patient engagement and education, and scraping it for other information of value.
I’m sure that many readers of this don’t like this discussion at all. No doubt many feel like pharma shouldn’t have any relationship with an EHR vendor. That’s naive since pharma already has relationships with many EHR vendors. It’s a mistake for us to put a blind eye to this topic.
Yes, we need to proactive in talking about how EHR vendors should work with pharma and how they should not work with pharma. If we’re not involved in the conversation, we’ll miss out on the opportunity to shape the discussion.
Plus, not all pharma interaction with EHRs is bad. It can be a really good thing as long as what’s being done is transparent. Plus, the reality is that pharma is going to have an influence on doctors. Why not have that work done in an EHR where you can know what influence pharma is having on the doctor? Pharma and EHR vendors will work together. The question is how much we’re going to know about their involvement.
The need for transparency is paramount. There is no need for EHRs to have a monopoly on decision support for either patients or physicians. It’s in Pharma’s interest to promote Independent Decision Support at the Point of Care http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2016/05/13/independent-decision-support-at-the-point-of-care-for-both-patients-and-physicians/
Pharma does need to be involved.
It was one of the identified GAPs we discussed on our blog http://www.theusabilitypeople.com/thought_leadership/ehr-usability-gaps-specified-context-use
here is a c/p of the pharma section:
Pharmacists
For most EHRs and other HealthIT , Pharmacists seem to be pretty much out of the loop, yet they have an expertise that can and should be shared with the patient. There has to be a way to get their expertise into the system. Patients need to feel more comfortable asking them for advise, or Pharmacists need to become much more active in their participation in healthcare. If a new medicine is prescribed, patients need to ask their pharmacist if this medicine will interfere with any of their lifestyle or particular diet. What effect does drinking alcohol have of its effectiveness? A proactive pharmacist can save a live too!