The COVID-19 pandemic saw life sciences and pharmaceutical companies face bigger challenges than ever, especially when it came to launching new drugs to the market. Reaching the right customers, in the right place, at the right time, had never been harder.
And today, although the pandemic is officially over, many lasting effects remain – especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Driven by the pandemic, omnichannel in pharma has made its mark as the way to enhance engagement across all channels and multiple stakeholders. For pharmaceutical and medtech organizations, this shift to an omnichannel model means personalized engagement, improved revenues and quality of care, and most importantly, better patient outcomes.
In other words, the pharmaceutical industry has adopted more holistic engagement models that put patients first. They benefit from a streamlined customer journey managed via accessible digital channels, and a better, more customer centric approach to patient care.
At the 8th Annual Emids Healthcare Summit, Andy Corts, SVP of Research and Digitization at SignalPath joined Calyx CEO Gavin Nichols for an in-depth discussion on how pharma has eliminated long-standing silos and adopted holistic engagement models that puts patients first.
What is Omnichannel in Pharma?
Omnichannel in pharma refers to a coordinated and integrated strategy where pharmaceutical companies interact with healthcare professionals (HCPs), patients, and other stakeholders across various platforms. The goal of omnichannel in pharma is to streamline workflows for providers, while offering a seamless, customer centric patient experience – regardless of how or where an interaction takes place.
The Shift to Omnichannel in Pharma
Over the past few years, digital transformation has proliferated and opened new mechanisms – including online portals, text messaging and telehealth – to support remote interactions and omnichannel engagement in pharma. Pharma is shifting to this omnichannel model, that promises a rising quality of care, patient outcomes, revenues and innovation.
“The omnichannel approach creates both a challenge and an opportunity for pharma. Now, no matter what channel you interact with there will always be context on the patient and their needs. This puts a responsibility on organizations to properly communicate with patients in an accessible way.”
Gavin Nichols
Calyx CEO
To improve patient experience and engagement, the healthcare industry needs to adapt to changes in the way people consume information. For that, new tools, resources and efficient communications are required. Pharma and medtech organizations are ushering in new leadership focused on patient engagement and being deliberate about investments. Simultaneously, technology companies are entering the arena to drive the omnichannel experience; for example, by aiding the implementation of GenAI into healthcare.
“Technology [in pharma] is now in the scaling phase and more than a novel idea; but rather, a common way we do business. There’s a new level of breadth and depth of research thanks to a digitally scaled model.”
Andy Corts
OneOncology Chief Technology Officer
Recognizing that they have lagged behind other industries in deploying digital solutions, both constituents – technology and pharma – are making incredible progress to remedy this gap.
The Value of Data
Panelists agreed that in the shift to an omnichannel world and decentralized clinical trials, one of the greatest success factors will be data. Walls are finally coming down around data liquidity and fragmentation, making data analytics equally as important as security and compliance. Because without extracting any meaningful value, data is just data.
On one hand, the advent of digital health tools, wearables and other tracking technologies enables pharma companies to capture massive amounts of patient and healthcare data and use this to gain meaningful insights. Investments in tokenization will enrich data sets and connect valuable stakeholders like physicians and pharmacies. Articulating what does and doesn’t work will help pivot resources and accelerate the development of personalized medicine. For most healthcare companies, it’s paramount to rely on both internal and external partnerships to develop an integrated data analytics strategy that facilitates seamless interaction and care delivery across different channels.
The Omnichannel Patient Experience
The patient will always be at the center of healthcare. Without them there would be no advancements in treatments, no progress in medical research, and no discovery of new therapies. Moving forward, organizations must undertake an agile transformation of their people, processes and technologies to embrace a patient-centric reality.
As a bright side of the pandemic, patients have become more comfortable with digital health solutions, and are more open to remote monitoring and care delivery at home. They are also vastly attuned to their individual needs and forging digital connections via online support groups, discussion boards or other forums.
With a successful omnichannel model, pharma can empower patients through trial recruitment and education, broadening accessibility to vital therapies and treatments – particularly for underserved populations. In the end, decreasing the complexity and go-to-market time for new drugs will positively affect the patient experience.
Omnichannel engagement in pharma and healthcare is about embracing a new model where agile teams combine human-centered design thinking, digital engagement and analytics to help deliver the right message at the right time through the right channel.
Getting Started with Emids
As pharma pursues the omnichannel experience, Emids is uniquely positioned to enable data and help accelerate value. By leveraging a wealth of experience specific to healthcare, Emids helps clients improve the lives of patients by enabling data insights and executing a data infrastructure ready for value creation.