Are you one step ahead?

A quick look

Kate Pain reports on the HCA’s Annual conference, ‘Staying One Step Ahead’ held on 6 October 2011. She recalls some of the comments from keynote speakers Stephen Whitehead, Professor Timothy Evans, Daniel Matthews, David Tovey, Matt Jameson Evans and Emma Barnett.

It was with great pleasure that I attended last week’s Healthcare Communications Association (HCA) Annual Conference ‘Staying One Step Ahead’, with key note speakers including the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry’s (ABPI) Stephen Whitehead, the Royal College of Physician’s (RCP) Professor Timothy Evans, and Accenture’s Daniel Matthews. The emphasis was on the significant changes occurring in the healthcare environment: economic, political and social. As per the title, the call to action was proactive. It encouraged delegates to think ahead, plan and assess how best to manage the challenges facing healthcare communicators.

Here are some snapshots from the day…

Trust and transparency

The programme kicked off with three presentations surrounding the issue of trust and transparency. David Tovey, editor-in-chief of the Cochrane Review suggested that the building blocks of trust between a doctor and patient are competence, compassion, realism, sharing of power and personal care. He added that both positive and negative trial data should be published and access to such data should be public and free.

Tovey was followed by Professor Timothy Evans, academic vice president of the RCP who addressed the conference via video. Similarly, he also saw disclosure, ie, total transparency regarding data as a key step forward, plus also emphasised the importance in getting education ‘right’. He argued that pharma and medical bodies must partner to regulate and disclose the vital support for education.

Stephen Whitehead, chief executive of the ABPI, began his presentation by quoting Shakespeare’s Othello: “Reputation, reputation, reputation. O! I have lost my reputation.” He argued that the industry’s reputation is not aligned with reality, rather myth and that he was not apologetic but rather passionate about pharma. “I have never been so enthused about getting up for work,” he said.

Whitehead nevertheless stressed the importance of partnering “from bench to patient with every stakeholder along the way” and to collaborate with healthcare professionals (HCPs) as, he said, pharma’s relationship with doctors is where industry reputation falls down.

Keeping up with the accelerating environmental changes

Daniel Mathews, managing partner, UK Life Sciences Practice, Accenture, presented a thorough and enlightening presentation focusing on the ‘big picture’. Looking ahead, he forecasted that 77 per cent of growth of pharma companies will come from emerging markets, which currently stands at 17 per cent.  And yet, 80 per cent of the industry is expecting to have stagnant or negative growth in the near future.

He encouraged multi-channel integration through closed loop marketing and asked delegates to think less about cycles of campaigns and more about continuous engagement. “It’s no longer just about the product; it’s about creating a service,” he said. “Find the ‘sweet spot’ and increase growth by knowing which messages resonate with your customers.”

He also asked agencies to demonstrate impact of digital campaigns, stating that there are 9,200 apps in the healthcare market place (75 per cent developed by industry) but that the majority of these are not being used. He added that he hasn’t seen a single success story regarding pharma’s use of social media.

The evolving face of communications

This session was led by Matt Jameson Evans, director at Health Unlocked and Emma Barnett, digital media editor at The Daily Telegraph.

Evans reflected that while web 1.0 drove a wedge between HCPs and patients, web 2.0 has the potential to connect them. Through Health Unlocked, he is trying to help patients self manage and bridge the gap with HCPs.

He also noted that digital interaction has the capacity to capture real-world patient data rather than purely clinical data and this can be used to better manage the patient doctor relationship, though trust is the “primary value”.

Barnett talked about digital comms in a more general light. While she thinks social media is a good thing in that it has encouraged PRs to “boil things down to the core” (helpful for time-pressed journalists), personal relationships are nevertheless critical and the power of a phone call should not be forgotten.

She cautioned against setting up Facebook pages if you don’t have any original content, but did advocate use of social media engagement tools such as Twitter, Google+ and sees instant private messaging as a valuable tool in the future.

Workshops

The conference circuit has been busy this last month and distinguishing yourself within the cacophony of noise is no mean feat. But the afternoon workshops achieved this: delegates had a chance to break into smaller groups and discuss content presented by the speakers in relation to their own environments.

I attended Andrew Spong’s ‘Technology and Social Media Workshop’ and aside from enjoying the opportunity to converse with him in a face-to-face rather than virtual environment, his presentation and subsequent discussion was thought-provoking and suitably tailored to the complexities of the pharma environment.

Additional workshops included: ‘The Changing Role of Patient Groups’, ‘Aligning the Communication and Market Access Functions’ and ‘What Is Innovation in Medical Education?’

Round-up

Judging by the supportive stream of Tweets and general comments during the networking breaks (500+), this year’s conference was warmly received. Personally, it was one of my highlights, largely due to the niche crowd and topical content delivered and discussed in a relaxed setting. Huge thanks to the HCA.

For more, please see http://www.hca-uk.org/  

The author
Kate Pain is Communique Group Editor at PMGroup Worldwide.
She can be contacted at kpain@pmlive.com or on +44 (0) 1372 414284

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