Will healthcare ever embrace digital?
According to the recent Future of Communications survey Ruder Finn conducted, the answer is yes… though eventually and incredibly cautiously.
The ‘cautiously’ part is hardly surprising - in the regulatory environment that surrounds healthcare communications, especially prescription products, caution prevails. Facilitating greater dialogue around prescription medicines raises a whole host of issues from the interpretation of promotion versus non-promotion through to complications around adverse risk reporting. This cautious attitude is further amplified by the nature of the regulations surrounding digital communications. Although some regulatory bodies, like the ABPI in the UK, have taken steps to try and set down rules governing digital media, they are still peppered with ‘grey areas’. Where some industries have already taken the plunge and are happily doing backstroke, the healthcare sector has only just rolled up a trouser leg and dipped a toe in the water.
It is important of course to exercise caution, but the ‘eventually’ bit of my answer is also important. Not only must healthcare companies start to embrace digital communications in order to stay relevant, but if this does not happen, it will miss out on a consistently growing audience and medium with which to reach them.
Market research tells us that patients, carers and healthcare professionals use the internet more and more for health information. In fact at a nurse advisory board I recently attended, the majority of the room stated that they often go online during consultations with patients to look up queries. They of course had some favoured, trusted sources, but they were Googled nonetheless. I also think of myself and my family - I’ll often consult the internet prior to consulting a GP and older members of my family have carried out extensive research on their conditions to find out more about their treatment options.
Information is out there, whether pharma companies want it to be or not, and people are accessing it.
The healthcare industry is full of intelligent and sophisticated marketeers who recognise this ‘evolution’ is taking place and want to be part of it. Our own experience tells us that some pharma companies are doing great work monitoring social media and reacting to issues. But the key word is ‘reacting’. It is the proactive work that is difficult and the bottom line is nobody wants to be first to run a big digital campaign. But proactivity doesn’t have to mean taking risks. Healthcare will eventually fully embrace the digital age but it won’t be done in great leaps but small incremental steps. Only by doing these small steps will regulatory departments, who are key to this change ever occuring, come on board.
So what do we mean by small steps? It’s doing a few simple things well. Maybe that is sponsored links on google to ensure responsible web sites appear at the top of searchs when people look for counterfeit products. How about non-branded educational videos on Youtube, more of these are starting to appear now. Holding online advisory boards on secure networks, which are far more cost effective and allow flexibility for the participants. We could go on.
The way patients and healthcare professionals search for information and interact with each other has changed. Therefore it stands to reason that how healthcare companies communicate with these audiences also has to change. This will happen and, to a certain extent, is already happening but it will take time and it will take a lot of small steps.
Tags: digital, Future of Communications, healthcare, PR
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