Among Italian doctors there is a growing expectation that the scientific rep will definitively assume an increasingly important and pivotal role in the activity of medical communication
Analysts are the first to be surprised: the more time doctors spend online to update themselves, the more 'quality' time they can dedicate to patients. Also because, having studied 'more', they are more up-to-date. “It is not a paradox as it might appear at first glance, he explains Isabella Cecchini, Director of the GFK Eurisko Health Research Department, commenting on the data of the GFK-Eurisko 2014 research on Digital Doctor Communication, conducted on 1250 specialists and over 200 family doctors, but confirming that using all the technological potential we have available today can free up time and resources to devote to taking care of and listening to patients' needs, increasing the quality and richness of professional updating.
From our research, Cecchini continues, it emerges clearly that almost all Italian doctors are online; the 80% is exposed to e-remote or tele detailing modes; the 30% already receives scientific updates online today; the 70% owns a smartphone compared to the 50% of 2013, while one doctor out of two now owns a tablet. Important numbers that demonstrate how medical-scientific information "runs" already today on the web in Italy and accelerates its path towards a real digital earthquake from which new relational methodologies will originate in the context of the relationship between doctors and informants scientific doctor.
Among Italian doctors, concludes Cecchini, there is a growing expectation that the scientific rep will definitively assume an increasingly important and pivotal role in the activity of medical communication. The Internet is increasingly important for doctors and new interaction spaces are appearing on the web and new ways of using information, such as Apps and YouTube. But in this constantly changing scenario, there is also a strong need for support in the use of these tools; remote support that can meet the new needs of our doctors".
A virtual service. “We are living in the first days of a non-linear digital evolution which, in just a few years, will drastically change the relationship with doctors and the methods of scientific information and training, explains Maurizio Percopo, CEO of Domedica from whose experience "Relationships, Delivered" was born, a new service for building highly valuable and long-term interactive virtual relationships for medical-scientific information, with scientific medical informants competent, motivated and prepared.
From our surveys, continues Pèrcopo, more than the 91% of the Italian doctors who initiate this "relationship" declare themselves satisfied with the level of preparation of the remote scientific representatives, 89% recognizes the importance of the continuity of relationship that is established with our iRep, and 96% appreciates being able to schedule appointments with flexible hours. “Relationships, Delivered” definitely aims at an approach no longer based on the number of calls or visits made to the doctor's office, but at an interactive relationship between doctors and medical-scientific reps.
The doctor's point of view. “What is happening is a real big bang, and it will soon completely change the rules of the game, he confirms Claudio Cricelli, President of SIMG, the Italian Society of General Medicine and Primary Care -, at whose appointment it is better to be prepared so as not to be literally swept away by the technological innovation which has now overwhelmed and positively flooded our way of working, but which, in our country is struggling to take off in a systematic way, feeling the effects of all the delay with which the digital agenda is unfortunately being carried forward".
But the future is unstoppable and will not pass through linear but vertical and instantaneous innovation processes". “These are the realities that will allow our country to bridge the gap with the more advanced countries on the web 3.0 front – he comments Eugene Santoro, Head of the Medical Informatics Laboratory, Mario Negri Institute of Pharmacological Research -. The diffusion of these services among doctors, as well as the simultaneous presence on the web and on social networks of suppliers and users of medical information, will allow the creation of essential communities in the web 3.0 era”.
(ISABELLA SERMONTI – 19 March 2015 – Libero Quotidiano.it)
Related news: The new medical-scientific communication runs on the web. Without putting aside the scientific medical rep, who remains its fulcrum, information is becoming multi-channel and integrated, with doctors increasingly making use of the internet and new digital tools
