Attending the DigiPharm conference recently has made me think again about how the industry is approaching the opportunities presented by developments in digital technology. I keep coming back to a favourite expression; a lot of activity and not much progress. We’re all talking a lot about the opportunities but few companies are brave enough to really embrace change.
I met a number of people at the conference who really do seem to be experimenting with digital communications vehicles. Having said I’m frustrated with all the talk and no progress, we’ve just contributed to the noise with a piece of insight amongst 500 GPs and specialists conducted with ICM Research.
One of the challenges that we often get from clients is to quantify the value of online versus print coverage, so we set out to find out for ourselves. The research shows very little difference in how GPs rate print versus online media as a source of information (86% v 77%) and for specialists nine out of ten rate online medical media on a par with traditional print. In terms of the future, 73% of GPs and 84% of specialists predict that their use of online media as a source of medical information will increase. With over a quarter of GPs and a third of specialists also predicting an increase in social/ professional networking sites as sources of medical information we have an opportunity to expand the way in which we communicate with our customers.
Whilst we’re all looking to the PMCPA for guidance on how we do this; the web is moving on. By the time the guidance is available, it could well be out of date