Rethinking Omnichannel Pharma
Omnichannel strategies are firmly established in the pharmaceutical industry and primarily aim at consistent, personalized communication with physicians. Numerous professional publications describe omnichannel as a further development of the multichannel approach, in which data are used to orchestrate communication measures across channels and make them more relevant.
At the same time, international organizations such as the World Health Organization point out that therapeutic success does not depend solely on the prescription, but is significantly influenced by the behavior of patients in everyday life. Adherence, health literacy and self-management are considered key determinants of outcomes, particularly in chronic diseases.
Against this background, it becomes clear that omnichannel strategies that focus exclusively on health care professionals (HCPs) neglect a significant part of the supply chain.
Focusing on Doctors Is No Longer Sufficient
The strong HCP focus of many omnichannel models is historically understandable but is increasingly viewed critically. Pharmaceutical manufacturers naturally direct their efforts toward the prescribing physician. However, this does not take into account the change in therapy processes, particularly in the outpatient setting, where patients increasingly take on an equal role in determining a therapy that is suitable for them. In addition, the behavior of patients outside the practice when using their medications plays an essential role in both the effectiveness of the therapy and patient satisfaction. As a result, repeat prescriptions depend on patients’ perspectives in two ways.
And this is exactly where avoidable friction arises:
Patients receive information from various sources – doctor consultations, package leaflets, the internet, digital applications – that are often not coordinated with one another. Scientific analyses already show that consistent information across different touchpoints fosters trust and reduces cognitive load. Moreover, specialist articles in the Journal of Medical Marketing and the BMJ, among others, describe fragmented patient information as a relevant factor for non-adherence, which in turn can make repeat prescriptions and long-term therapy more difficult.
For pharmaceutical companies, this consequently creates the opportunity to support both physicians and patients with coordinated, evidence-based content – each tailored to information needs and regulatory frameworks. International professional societies and think tanks such as the Institute for Healthcare Improvement recommend consistently aligning care models along the patient journey. Applied to omnichannel, this means planning communication and service offerings not in isolation by channel, but along the phases of a therapy.
An omnichannel approach that systematically involves patients addresses precisely these points of fragmentation.
What the Implementation of a Patient-Based Approach Looks Like
The consistent integration of patients into omnichannel strategies presents pharmaceutical companies with a central challenge: while HCP communication has been structured, measurable, and regulatorily established for years, scalable, everyday, and data-protection-compliant touchpoints are often lacking on the patient side. It is precisely here that investing in new channels for patient communication can deliver a decisive competitive advantage.
Classic campaign tools for patient outreach, such as public websites and flyers, are not sufficient on their own for this purpose, as they are difficult to link and integrate dynamically into an omnichannel concept. As a result, longitudinal and more in-depth touchpoints over the course of therapy remain unused.
Digital patient applications, particularly mobile apps, can unlock this unused potential when deployed as a lasting infrastructure along the therapy journey. The benefits are obvious: a consistent brand experience, dynamic and controlled content, trust-building with patients without undermining the physician-patient relationship – and not least, a continuous data basis for evaluating the performance of the measures implemented. In addition, real-world data can also be collected, which have meanwhile become indispensable for manufacturers’ understanding of their own users. You can read more about this in this article: https://www.mediteo.com/en/patient-engagement-evolving-how-real-world-data-opens-up-new-perspectives-on-treatment-success/
As a digital patient application, mediteo integrates into pharmaceutical companies’ omnichannel strategies as a connecting element by continuously designing and building patient education and patient engagement across the entire course of therapy. The mediteo app supports patients in their day-to-day medication routines – from intake reminders and medication overviews to diary and measurement functions. This creates a non-invasive touchpoint for communication outside the doctor’s office or the pharmacy, supporting real-life usage situations with validated information and practical guidance.
Patient engagement thus becomes not a marketing add-on, but a building block of an integrated omnichannel strategy.
Evidence-Based Omnichannel Does Not End With the Physician
The literature is clear: therapeutic success emerges from the interplay of medical decision-making and patient-side implementation. Omnichannel strategies in the pharmaceutical industry must take this interplay into account.
Those who view patients as an integral part of omnichannel improve brand perception among physicians as well as the flow of professionally validated information to the end user as a valuable decision-maker. As a result, not only sales figures can increase, but also patient satisfaction and adherence.
Sources
- World Health Organization (WHO); Adherence to Long-Term Therapies: Evidence for Action; WHO, Geneva, 2003
- Journal of Medical Marketing; V. Kumar et al. (2020): Omnichannel marketing: A data-driven approach to improve customer experience; Journal of Medical Marketing, Vol. 20(1) DOI: 10.1177/1745790420915564
- BMJ – British Medical Journal; McCartney M. (2013): Patient information and shared decision making; BMJ 2013; 347:f7050 DOI: 10.1136/bmj.f7050
- Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI); Person- and Family-Centered Care; IHI White Paper, Cambridge (MA), USA
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