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When Dr. Osama Hashmi MD MPH, was a General Resident Physician at Grady Memorial Hospital, he and his team successfully treated a lot of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) exacerbations. The problem was that once they did, there wasn’t enough at-home oxygen to send these patients home. So their rooms became overcrowded with essentially healthy patients.
Dr. Hashmi was connected with a woman named Alex, an oxygen company rep. Shortly after their discussion, patients were getting discharged same-day.
The thing is that Alex knew the system in a way that Dr. Hashmi didn’t. While he understood the medicine, she knew how to connect patients to the resources they needed. And that got Dr. Hashmi’s wheels turning…
Pharma reps can offer a really useful avenue to improve patient care.
At the same time, Sandy Donaldson, Head of Global Omnichannel Marketing at UCB Pharma, was witnessing the problem from the other side; he had access to countless resources to help patients, but far less opportunity to get in front of the right physicians at the right time.
So together, they founded Impiricus with a shared goal: creating more ethical, patient-centric interactions between physicians and pharma in a way that’s high-value for doctors and their patients.
And that’s exactly what they’re doing.
How Impiricus Rx is Redefining HCP Engagement
With an impressive medical and health tech background, Dr. Hashmi understood the two main things physicians are seeking from Pharma partners: personalization and action.
“As a Dermatologist, receiving an ad for an Oncology drug isn’t relevant or useful to me,” Dr. Hashmi explained. “Before anything else, I’m looking for products and services that can bring value to my patients. This personalization is an important part of sparking that initial engagement. But seeing an ad that is relevant to my practice is only one part of it; having a very clear and actual way to interact with it is the other. I don’t want to just passively consume the content. I want it to be actionable — how can what I’m seeing actually impact a patient sitting in my clinic right now?”
So Impiricus’ technology aims to drive more open, reliable, and patient-centric communication between physicians and Pharma with SMS text messaging at its core. Over the last year alone, the platform has mediated over half a million messages to physicians with a next-level understanding of each recipient’s needs and preferences.
“This personalization is all driven by data and continues to become more robust with the more physicians we reach,” Osama shared. “Not only do we ensure regulatory compliance, we also have an Independent Physician Council that reviews these messages to ensure the content is relevant and data is correctly represented. We’ve invested a lot of time and technology to work with carriers and third-party services to ensure messages get delivered and tracked accurately. It’s a constant analysis of all the different types of messaging going out to better understand what types of content really drive each specific physician — from their area of expertise to practice locations, past response behaviors, etc. All of our data really comes together at the core of what we do.
“Then we work with our clients’ regulatory and compliance teams to ensure there can be actions taken out of each text. We want to ensure the whole experience can happen in one place, and they know exactly how to get what they need from the message at that moment.”
This action piece is what’s really exciting for physicians — within the message, you can actually schedule meetings, request drug samples, and ask questions. And everything is tied back to the Pharma company to ensure triage is being handled properly and the experience is a positive one.
“It’s not only very effective for the physicians, but it’s also really unique in that there’s a large number of physicians (as much as 20%) within a general Pharma company’s ideal physician base that can only be reached through Impiricus,” Dr. Hashmi added. “I think that’s a true testament to the trust and digital intimacy we have built amongst doctors and the fact that we’re doing something really great for the ecosystem.”
Improving the Patient Experience: Quick Access with the Impiricus Wallet
SMS text messaging has only laid the foundation for more high-level engagement opportunities. The Impiricus team is continually building out new tech that fits into this overarching mentality of getting the right message to the right doctor at the right time. The most recent is their development of the Impiricus Wallet.
This digital wallet provides physicians quick access to material right on their home screen — no app, no browser — similar to a wallet like Apple Pay or an airline’s digital boarding pass. Whether it’s patient enrollment, medication instructions, or info on treatment or financial assistance programs, etc, Impiricus works with the Pharma company to determine the specific content their physicians need access to often and immediately, giving them easy access at all times.
“We wanted to give physicians something they could pull up and show patients during an appointment within two seconds of needing it,” Dr. Hashmi explained. “We collaborate with the Pharma company to understand what specific content is routinely most important to their patients, and the best way to display it. Sometimes it may be a QR code or a shareable link that they can send to the patient, and we’ll craft the messaging to make sure it’s the most impactful to their patients. We’re also currently working with our Physician Council to uncover other best practices and evolve its capabilities over the next year or so.
Impiricus is all about creating a network of trust with more reliable and open ways to connect with HCPs,” Osama concluded. “Our technology is helping us shape the next generation of this engagement with our technology, and we’re really excited about what we know the future can hold.”
To learn more about their state-of-the-art engagement technology, contact Impiricus today. And if you’re interested in complementing your HCP marketing with high-quality, high-performance digital campaigns, contact the production experts at Assemble Rx today.