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Market Needs

Health professionals have an ongoing need to keep up with 'significant' scientific advances relevant to their own specialty area. Strict regulations apply to the dissemination of product-related medical education. More importantly, the volume and sophistication of the information have evolved, making it harder for physicians to keep up using traditional mechanisms.

Health care providers need the input of thought leaders and leading specialists to understand, interpret and accept the scientific data and use it for patient care. Practitioners are more time-restricted than ever with the many pressures to reduce the costs of health care delivery. They can only find time to consult a few credible sources to stay current in their field of expertise. Their "bandwidth" no longer accommodates channels that cannot provide the necessary in-depth, balanced information needed to understand new therapies and decide between competitive products.

Recent developments in the industry code on Interaction with Healthcare Professionals prohibit many previously common sales and marketing practices. Importantly, the code states that "interactions should be focused on informing health care professionals about products, providing scientific and educational information and supporting market research and education". The code further points out that financial support by companies selling products and services is permissible in the development and delivery of Continuing Medical Education (CME). Thus CME has become a major focus for disseminating new medical and healthcare information about products and services. Industry expenditures for CME are currently over $1 Billion per year and growing at the rate of over 20% annually.

The rapidly expanding capability of information technology continues to facilitate more effective delivery of training in complex new subject areas. The challenge for the end-user is finding an information source that is sufficiently credible and personalized to meet his requirements. For example, there is an enormous amount of data available on the Web relating to the medical and scientific areas of interest to healthcare professionals. However, the information is neither rated nor adequately interpreted for the practical educational needs of these individuals.

In summary, the key challenges that educators face in getting their messages out to physicians include:

(1) Opinion leaders and "early adopters" are hard to engage. They are geographically and professionally fragmented and often suffer from information overload. This makes it hard for marketing messages to be heard above the crowd. Busy medical professionals tend to spend time only with known and respected sources of information.

(2) The aging of our society shifts healthcare burdens towards the management of increasingly complex and chronic conditions. As disease interventions become more sophisticated, so do the educational messages. Moreover, while the content becomes increasingly specialized, interpreting what it means in a highly regulated environment is fraught with additional challenges: information is tightly controlled and must comply with strict scientific and regulatory standards.

Bioexpertise's primary value lies in its ability to deliver effective education to 'early-adopter' communities - credibly and effectively. Key components of this value are the company's patented knowledge management mechanisms and branded delivery channels that provide a comprehensive continuing education resource free of charge to the professionals who most influence the acceptance of new biomedical modalities. The design and content of the channels includes access to respected and trusted researchers, opinion leaders, and specialists who provide insight to the most current clinical research. Bioexpertise's ability to recruit and retain the interest and support of these highly recognized individuals is another key component of value. Bioexpertise is unique among providers of CME in its ability to influence physician adoption behavior through its recursive and cognitive targeting technologies. A recently published study confirmed true Level Four behavioral outcomes for several BioCritique programs (Critical Pathways in Cardiology, March 2007, Volume 6, Pages 30-40).

 

 

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