With More Patients Preferring Telehealth Pharma Marketing Needs Retooling

With More Patients Preferring Telehealth Pharma Marketing Needs Retooling  

Even after six months of COVID-19 pandemic, the omnipresent chaos, general unease and apprehensions about a yet unpredictable future continues in all countries, including India. In absence of vaccines and proven medicines to address the disease, wearing face mask, maintaining social distancing and frequent hand sanitizing, remain the primary measures for all to combat this unprecedented health crisis.

The rapid spread of the lethal Coronavirus has not only impacted lives and livelihoods, besides changing the health care ecosystem – with a silver lining, though. The pandemic has instilled a sense of urgency – an accelerated speed – in the entire value chain of the health care systems, including the pharma industry.

To contain the rapid spread of the disease – many physicians, Governments and even patients themselves, are being encouraged to leverage technological platforms, for various non-Covid related medical needs. Realizing that there no other working alternatives in this situation, even most skeptical doctors and patients are now resorting to video consultations.

Consequently, ‘Telemedicine’, in different forms, has started growing in leaps and bounce. Its spin-off benefits favor the patients – better care at lower costs, sans any further strain on the existing health care systems. Along with many others, the Bloomberg article of April 10, 2020 – ‘Coronavirus Should Finally Smash the Barriers to Telemedicine,’ also expects it to grow, not just during the pandemic, but much beyond.

Echoing the World Health Organization (W.H.O) on the need to promote telemedicine in this health crisis, Niti Aayog of India also acknowledged, ‘‘Telemedicine: A Blessing In Disguise In Time Of COVID-19.’ It further added, ‘With the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, telemedicine has finally gained momentum. Telemedicine providers reported an overnight increase in demand, acceptance among doctors, paramedics, and consumers.’

As patient-doctor interactions are now expanding – from personal visits to physicians to remote telehealth, is there a need for recomposing notes of the pharma marketing playbook - to excel in the new world order?  This article would focus on this specific area of leveraging ‘The Break in The Clouds’.

Telemedicine and its key primary driver: 

‘Telemedicine’– often called telehealth or e-medicine, in simple term, involves the remote delivery of health care services, when both doctors and patients are not physically present at the same place. It includes, patient examination, doctor consultations, diagnosis, treatment and remote monitoring, over the technology enabled modern communication infrastructure.

Although, telemedicine is not a new concept, it was not very popular for various reasons, till Covid pandemic offered no other viable alternatives to non-Covid patients. The article – ‘COVID-19: The rise and rise of telemedicine,’ published in the MobileHealthNews on May 27, 2020, also vindicates this point. It reconfirmed: ‘Telemedicine has experienced a huge surge in adoption over the past few months, during the coronavirus pandemic.’

Even Frost & Sullivan’s recent analysis, ‘Telehealth – A Technology-Based Weapon in the War Against the Coronavirus’ of May 13, 2020, found the demand for telehealth technology rising dramatically, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt the delivery of healthcare worldwide. Thus, ongoing stringent requirements of wearing face masks and maintaining social distancing to contain the virus spread, will continue to drive the growth telemedicine as the preferred way of accessing healthcare.

Indian perspective of increased online access to health care:

Practo’s Insight Report of June 20, 2020, titled, ‘How India accessed health care in the last three months,’ has revealed some interesting India-specific data in this area. This study was based on transactions of 500 million Indians accessing health care online, during March 1, 2020 to May 31, 2020 period. It found, while COVID-19 continued to remain India’s topmost concern, ‘telemedicine has helped doctors – patients stay connected, as people practiced physical/social distancing.’ This resulted into a ‘500 percent increase in online doctor consultations,’ in that time frame. Other important findings of this report include:

• 80 percent of all telemedicine users experienced it for the first time.
• 44 percent of the teleconsultations were from non-metro cities.
• In-person doctor visits dropped by 67 percent.
• Indians consulted their doctors 2 times per month, using telemedicine.

The surge in teleconsultations in India, reportedly, follows the long-pending telemedicine guidelines which were finally issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in collaboration with NITI Aayog and Board of Governors, Medical Council of India (MCI).

Could ‘Telehealth’ be a game changer even beyond Covid time?

Many experts in this area believe so. .....continue reading at https://bit.ly/3jQnuFr