The changing world of healthcare is placing new demands on pharmaceutical medical affairs (MA). One specific challenge is adapting established approaches to engage with Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).
The shift of responsibility from Clinical Commissioning Groups to ICBs in 2022 means that pharmaceutical MA teams need to look beyond traditional healthcare providers (HCP) to connect with. Multi-disciplinary community-based care teams now include non-clinical staff who also play an important role in a drug’s success. It’s no longer just medical professionals, but a broader audience with varying degrees of medical knowledge and these different teams need tailored communications.
This presents new opportunities for MA teams to make a positive impact in this expanded stakeholder group. Medical Science Liaisons need to be prepared to talk about various topics – including budget impact, sustainability and diversity – to different and new audiences, accommodating distinct perspectives and challenges as part of a more holistic HCP approach.
So, what does this mean in practice for effective MA communications? We asked our leading MA consultants to share best practices they’ve developed and adopted in working with the HCP community model of care since 2022.
1. Review your KOL roster
New influencers have emerged who map to these expanded audiences. Now’s the time to review your KOL approach – who do you need to be talking to and what do they want to hear, in what proportions and format.
2. Engage a broader audience
There is a movement to train more people into non-clinical specialist roles to give patients more choice and increased access. As well as specialist HCPs, nurses and pharmacists, consider broader services delivered in local communities such as local sports venues, community halls and mobile clinics in your planning for medical communications: they may wield significant influence.
3. Refresh or replace existing resources
High quality drug administration and compliance tools, tailored for the broader team, will help to make sure that patients take medication correctly. Developing decision aids to suit the community model will help to include everyone in discussions and support favourable attitudes across the whole team towards medication.
4. Craft correctly pitched disease information
Design disease education material to meet the needs of a wider team that includes non-clinical members. Mapping the disease ‘journey’ from prevention to early detection, treatment then management will enable more people to identify patients who may be at risk of a particular disease.
5. Embed health literacy
Using a wide and well-targeted range of digital and traditional formats and delivery methods helps more people get the message. This supports more meaningful patient-doctor conversations and optimised patient outcomes, because patients are better able to express questions and understand and recognise issues, so they can be addressed more quickly and effectively. Plain language and clear visuals are also key for non-medical audiences, including caregivers in the expanded community team.
If you need communications support in the new ICB landscape or for any other area of MA, our consultants can support you with counsel, content and delivery. Get in touch if you’d like to talk to one of our MA or MedEd specialists or to put together a proven team from The Difference with the exact skills you need to meet your engagement goals.
Look out for further blog content coming up: we’ll be tackling the topics of reviewing the KOL landscape and communications for the new-look market access communities
About The Difference Collective
We build bespoke, full-service teams to meet your healthcare consultancy, content and communications needs, delivering exceptional results for our clients’ strategic priorities and projects. We work for the best and most ambitious organisations in pharma and healthcare. We’re Different from traditional healthcare communications agencies because we have more experience, we offer better value and – most importantly – we achieve exceptional results.
