Over the course of the pandemic, no channel in or around healthcare was transformed as suddenly — and indelibly — as the point of care.
Prior to March 2020, the industry’s definition of what constitutes a point of care had already started to shift. Retail pharmacies, notably, had become a true presence. Then COVID-19 ushered in the era of telemedicine, opening up another promotional realm in which marketers could reach providers and patients.
“It was an absolute whirlwind,” recalls Veradigm VP of strategic partnerships Damon Basch. “It forced change at a pace that we’ve never seen before in pharma or pharma marketing.”
Despite the industry’s longstanding rep for adopting new technologies at a measured pace, most of those changes outlived the pandemic. As a result, the POC channel, which had historically been centered on the sacrosanct space of the doctor’s office, has effected a transformation rarely seen in medical media. Companies in the space went from looking to the future with a wary eye to nimbly navigating a world in which physicians and caregivers are no longer easily reached within the confines of the waiting room.
“Generally speaking, we’re an industry that moves slowly. We want to make sure that we’re compliant, that we’re privacy-oriented, that we’re building resources that add value and that we have communication channels with doctors and patients that are effective. So we take our time,” Basch explains. “All of a sudden, all of that had to change overnight. We, as a collective force, had to be there when a physical person could not be.”
That meant weaning marketers off their reliance on magazines and pamphlets — though it’s worth noting the ongoing appeal of several POC print brands published by Dotdash Meredith’s Targeted Media Health and others, including People Health and Time Health — and nudging them toward programs that take advantage of in-office media networks and QR codes.
Thus it’s no longer a matter of cleaning up after Basch’s whirlwind so much as recognizing the opportunities that whirlwind has revealed. That plays into the notion of “point of care everywhere,” which imagines an expansive definition of the space.
Thus the “point of care” is increasingly conceived as multiple touchpoints embracing a variety of settings and tactics along each patient’s personal journey. In fact, Phreesia SVP, life sciences David Linetsky goes so far as to refer to the channel as “a state of mind.”
To that end, POC marketing may now begin with a patient’s Google search or visit to a physician finder.
“Marketers have always wanted to be in these moments where people are making healthcare decisions, those moments where they are in a high state of receptivity and thinking about their care,” Linetsky says. “You start thinking about your care and learning and making decisions before you arrive at your appointment — when you’re booking the appointment, when the office is texting you to confirm it and maybe fill out forms in advance.”
During these engagements, Linetsky believes, it’s more possible than ever before to educate, inform and generate awareness. “If your goal is to drive a certain behavior or drive a positive health outcome, these are important moments where you can interact with the patient. Some of them are before a visit, some of them are during it and some of them are after it,” he adds.
Meanwhile, the number of ways to deliver impactful POC messaging has multiplied dramatically, even as some of the traditional standbys have been compromised by decidedly non-media-related factors. One of the pandemic’s lingering effects, nearly every POC-adjacent expert notes, is a reluctance to touch physical objects in waiting and exam rooms.
Filling that void have been techniques and technologies ranging from AR and VR content to AI chatbots. “QR codes have become ubiquitous, including within the POC setting,” notes Point of Care Marketing Association president Nicole Divinagracia. “Remote patient monitoring and other digital health tools have empowered patients to take a more active role in managing their health, enhancing accessibility and convenience.”
CheckedUp CEO and cofounder Dr. Richard Awdeh agrees, acknowledging an industry-wide push toward using technology in a way that more effectively delivers education within POC settings.
“For different disease states or different brands, we’ve created animated models and digital patient counselors that a patient can engage with while the doctor is out of the room,” he says. “When the doctor comes in, the patient has had at least a brief synopsis of whatever disease they’re being treated for.”
While the tools may be new — and some of them flashier or glitchier than others — Divinagracia believes their effectiveness is grounded in the historical strengths of POC marketing.
“AI, and leveraging data and technology more generally, is going to accelerate what we already do best: personalize, contextualize and increase the effectiveness of information delivery at every point of care,” she says.
The longstanding dream — reaching, say, wellness-focused individuals who have lived for some time with a manageable health condition and crave better tailored content — is within reach, and that’s before many of the most recent technological innovations have fully taken hold. There’s also near unanimity among pharma brand team leaders that a robust channel presence has long since elevated from a nice-to-have to a must-have.
All of that is to say: The best is yet to come. Divinagracia believes the ability of companies operating within the POC ecosystem to deftly handle enormous volumes of data should render the channel more and more invaluable to marketers.
“These tools are helping practitioners diagnose and treat with more precision, sorting information that is too large for HCPs to handle independently,” she notes. “It’s also helping patients get better care, helping them understand practical things such as access and affordability as well as manage their medications and conditions.”
Such knowledge is crucial at the moment of conversion — which, Basch argues, plays to the channel’s strengths.
“I don’t think POC is more effective; I think POC is there to drive conversion,” he explains. “If your strategy is designed to build initial awareness and then interest and engagement, it needs to push toward an endpoint or a throughput. The throughput is point of care.”
Basch believes, in fact, that the channel (and the information it delivers) might somehow be undervalued among physicians.
“The physician needs to know that the patient can afford a medication, and that they will fill it, refill it and be adherent. The physician needs to know that a drug has good coverage and the authorization will be there,” he continues. “That’s why, as marketers, we need to understand the POC environment so that we can be specific with the intervention that we drive. We have to make sure that it’s complementary and that it helps the physician treat a specific patient and drive a better outcome.”
Awdeh agrees, believing the POC channel is an ideal messaging conduit for healthcare’s imminent AI era.
“We’re in a new platinum age of medicine and approving all of that messaging through the formal processes will be one of our biggest challenges,” he says. “We will be able to continue to improve the quality of patient care and empower physicians to practice more mindful medicine.”
From the August 01, 2024 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
