Terms like omnichannel, artificial intelligence (AI), data-driven, and real time are defining the conversation around HCP marketing – and for good reason. Today’s savviest life science marketers understand that the key to successfully engaging physicians (and driving patient acquisition) is harnessing the potential of new technologies to increase the clinical relevance of brand communications.
As OptimizeRx found in our latest physician survey, HCPs are tired of generic marketing content, but actively seeking more information on patient eligibility, financial support programs, prior authorization processes, and other key factors that impact their patients’ likelihood of starting and staying on the right therapy. In other words, what engages physicians is delivering value – not noise. But meeting this physician need requires more than just the right brand content – it also requires the channel reach, physician-level engagement data and real-time precision to coordinate where, when, and what brand information is being delivered. This approach has been coined next-best action.
What Is a Next-Best Action Strategy?
Ideally, a next-best action approach enables life science marketers to identify the most effective combination of message, channel, and time in which to engage HCPs. It allows for real-time accommodation of HCP engagement preference, fluid movement between online and offline channels, and a host of content that helps physicians identify when a specific treatment is the best option for their patient. When fully implemented, it optimizes marketing efforts and improves the impact of HCP engagement programs.
While next-best action strategies share common DNA with current omnichannel approaches, in terms of the cross-channel coordination and reach, they represent an advancement in how omnichannel programs are implemented. Through the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning, next-best action programs allow for a significant increase in the number of variables that can be used to direct program implementation – notably real-time, physician-level engagement data, as well as time sensitive patient care milestones.
What sets ideal next-best action strategies apart is that they drive impact by bringing physician behavior together with critical patient journey milestones to deliver content that is clinically and contextually relevant for every HCP at every brand touchpoint.
Real-time Data that Guides Omnichannel Delivery
The volume of data available to build and inform engagement strategies is growing exponentially, but its use is limited by current (human) processing power, which means marketers may not be able to fully leverage data insights. That’s why AI is so critical to next-best action programs. In order to best direct media placement, AI models can process, distill and interpret data from a variety of sources, specifically:
- Physician-level Engagement: Real-time data on each physician’s prior media interactions, to determine which channel(s) they are most likely to engage with.
- Predictive Patient Flow: Real-world data analysis of physician patient panels, using prior patient care milestones (claims, EHR records, labs, etc.) to predict future care trajectory.
When AI-generated insights from these two datasets are applied to an omnichannel outreach network, the result is a unique ability to execute a next-best action strategy – aligning a specific physician situation to the most appropriate:
- Message: By understanding each physician’s patient population, and predicting future patient flow, brands can focus on the information with the highest clinical relevance.
- Channel: Based on real-time physician engagement, marketers can determine which delivery channel (EHR, social, online, sales rep, etc.) is best suited to each physician.
- Timing: By combining future patient flow insights with touchpoints throughout the care journey, information can be easily delivered in the context of what physicians are doing at any given moment, from meeting with brand-eligible patients, to researching potential treatments, or navigating access pathways.
Clinical Relevance, Value and Engagement
What sets ideal next-best action strategies apart is that they drive impact by bringing physician behavior together with critical patient journey milestones to deliver content that is clinically and contextually relevant for every HCP at every brand touchpoint. Ultimately, it’s not enough to just push generic brand content “everywhere” – the strongest results always come when information is aligned to specific patient care needs at a specific moment in time.
Interested in learning more about how OptimizeRx’s omnichannel network and artificial intelligence solutions can elevate your HCP engagement programs with a next-best action approach? Book a meeting with our team.