The Explosion of ePrescribing and EHRs –
What it Means to Pharma Marketers
As health care costs and the importance of quality continue to rise for hospitals, physicians, patients and payors, (including county, state, and the federal governments) the industry is increasingly turning to electronic prescribing (ePrescribing) and electronic health record (EHR) systems to decrease costs and increase quality. With this in mind, the federal government, among others, is providing numerous incentives to physicians to adopt these technologies. For example, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act of 2008 provides physicians with financial incentives (and starting next year, disincentives) to adopt ePrescribing and the HITECH Act provides physicians with financial incentives to adopt EHRs.
As a result, these incentives and other factors are leading to an explosion in the use of ePrescribing and EHRs by physicians. In fact, according to SureScripts, the nation’s largest electronic prescribing network, the number of prescriptions routed electronically increased 181% in 2009 to more than 190 million, representing 12% of all new prescriptions. In addition, the number of physicians adopting ePrescribing increased from 74,000 in 2008 to more than 156,000 in 2009. New data from Manhattan Research supports these findings showing that 62% of physicians currently have or will be adopting ePrescribing by the end of 2010 and 67% have or will be adopting EHRs by the end of 2010.
How can pharmaceutical marketers use these new technologies in a manner that supports the interests of all parties– government to lower cost and improve quality, physicians to receive valued, educational information that integrates into their workflow, and pharma to reach physicians with their brand messaging and achieve ROI goals?
One way is to provide information about your brands at the point-of-prescribing that is of high clinical value to physicians and of high value to the sponsoring pharmaceutical company. In other words, to provide information that fits in the upper right quadrant of the chart below.
Messaging physicians at the point-of-prescribing should be used as part of a larger, integrated campaign, not a stand-alone tactic. Every pharma marketer has facets of their messages that are more clinical in nature and facets of their messages that are more promotional in nature. Determining the appropriate channel for different types of messaging is crucial to enhancing physician engagement. Messaging physicians at the point-of-prescribing is ideal for delivering clinical messages whereas other digital channels are better suited to deliver more promotional messages. In addition, using an integrated multi-channel campaign will significantly increase your reach and provide you with valuable insight in terms of physician tactics and channel preferences and can reduce your vendor management time.
Physicians Interactive®, the leader in delivering multi-channel integrated eMarketing campaigns, has partnered with Allscripts Healthcare Solutions, the leader in the ePrescribing and EHR markets to offer pharmaceutical marketers the ability to message physicians at the point-of-prescribing and integrate this channel/tactic in a broader integrated campaign. In fact, 50% of all ePrescriptions in 2009 originated through an Allscripts system.
For more information on emerging channel solutions, please contact Physicians Interactive at 800-794-6757 or info@physiciansinteractive.com.
