Are REP Effectiveness KPIs Linked to the Delivery of Value to Physicians? (Part I: Introduction)
*Enrique Garrido
Health & Pharma Business Director at Invesfarm, Ceu San Pablo University, Spain
Submission: February 07, 2017; Published: February 09, 2017
*Corresponding author: Enrique Garrido, Health and Pharma Business Director at Invesfarm, Ceu San Pablo University, Playa De La Lanzada 22 Las Rozas Madrid 28230 Spain
How to cite this article: *Pramod S, Siristi S and Champaran R S. Pancreatic Cancer & Disorders. JOJ Pub Health. 2017; 1(1): 555552. DOI:10.19080/JOJPH.2017.01.555553
Perspective
Although we know that for any medical condition, no single outcome captures the results of care, the purpose of this article is to reflect on how the reps can provide value to their physicians through the visit.
What is Value for physicians?
Value is not about reps’ opinions, thoughts or ideas. It is about evidence, efficiency and being centered on our clients. It is about showing you are really interested in them, moving from a transactional to a consultative sale. Value is more than pricing and reimbursement. It’s about getting ahead of your competitors by really understanding your customers’ needs, what they are being measured on and what their key priorities are and it is about showing the relevance of your products to their needs (value interactions.com). Value should define the framework for performance improvement in health care. If value improves, patients, payers, providers, and suppliers can all benefit while the economic sustainability of the health care system increases. If you want to discover your clients’ needs, first ask them; then analyze the data and facts gathered and finally, implement the correct strategy. What do we know and what should we know about our clients? There is some evidence that gives us information related to value and how to improve our ROI.
This article includes information summarized from different articles, surveys and published material and data collected from 805 physicians from 24 medical specialties, 54 pharmaceutical executives interviewed from small, medium and big companies, 47 high-value reps and 41 low-value reps. Before starting with the reading, I would like all readers to be aware of the fact that figures included in this article are not as important as the tendency they indicate the “exact” figures are less important than the conclusions they reflect.
“It is really important to understand that facts and data are just facts and data. They are not decisions. Know what the important and relevant facts are that you need to look at”.
Kevin Wheeler, Founder and Chairman, Future of Talent Institute
What is Environment conclusions
Physicians have good relationships with their reps. “Every day physicians have more work. Recent studies have shown that the average physician must see an additional 23 percent more patients per day if they desire to maintain the same income”. If reps do not know the real needs their physicians have, so then physicians limit, or block the access to visit them. Seven out of 10 reps do not give value to their visits [1].
“An average of 85% of physicians surveyed across twentyfive specialties, claim that the extent of a representative’s knowledge about a specific disease state dramatically affects MDs’ confidence in prescribing that particular drug” [2].
Reps who do not give value to their visits, do not transmit credibility, do not communicate the product advantages properly and are not effective. In those cases, the message about their products is not trustworthy; due to this, physicians will look for product information from other sources. Reps who do not deliver value to physicians, do not understand their daily work.
Reps ignoreReps ignore
- How physicians diagnose the conditions their products can treat.
- Alternative products for the same pathology.
- Price and reimbursement
- How physicians can teach patients in order to improve treatment adherence.
- How to develop value to the specific therapeutic area.
Reps’ KPI are typically quantitative and not qualitative tools, however in 2011, GSK decided to pay incentives to reps according to the following qualitative KPI: selling competency, customer evaluations, and the overall performance of the sales professional’s business unit [3,4]. According to physicians, it is of utmost importance that reps approach them in a polite way, respect their time, personalize visits, build up a solid relationship and inspire confidence. Surprisingly, high and low-valuevalue reps do not think that approaching physicians in a polite way and respecting their time are so important.
“Physicians reported giving more weight to their clinical knowledge and experience, the patient’s particular situation, peer-reviewed journal articles, clinical practice guidelines, their colleagues and peers, and the patient’s financial status than to information from pharmaceutical companies when prescribing medication” [5]. “Physicians will welcome a relationship with a sales representative who can become a useful asset by delivering their own unique combination of experience, insight, knowledge and training” [6]. “In a recent Huthwaite study of nearly 500 sales managers, 92% rated their sellers’ skills “above average.” Yet those same managers were also overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the actual results of their sellers’ efforts. Why the disconnect?” [6].
A global study surveying physicians in 38 countries, including countries the following ones: France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Brazil, Russia, India, China, the US and Japan, throws the amazing result: Nearly 94% of physicians, both general practitioners and specialists, find rep calls useful and valuable to their practice. To break it down, one-third of this group report reps are very useful and of value, while 60.5 percent say somewhat useful and of value. The remainder say reps are not at all useful or of value, according to Cegedim Strategic Data, which conducted the survey and based it on more than 5.6 million product detailing mentions [7].
Physicians think a short and concise product message, good treatment and trust together with more product scientific evidence are the best elements to improve rep visits. In particular laboratories do not think scientific evidence is so important. 61% of physicians remember the product better when it is presented in first position, 13% of them when it is presented in second position, and finally 26% of physicians when it is presented in third position. From a pharmaceutical business point of view, only 55% of reps know the adoption ladder of their physicians and 25% of reps know which tool to use for each step of that adoption ladder [8-13].
Food for Thought
Is the “sweet spot” of the modern sales call a balance between being patient-cantered and being focus on pharmaceutical business needs in order to achieve stakeholder engagement, business results and patient outcomes?
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning”. Albert Einstein
References
- US Census Monitoring Board (2001) Price water house Coopers census study 2000: Undercount could cost states Billions. Report, Georgia.
- Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Industry. Sk & A Solutions.
- Selling competency, customer evaluations, and the overall performance of the sales professional’s business unit (2011) GSK media press release.
- GSK more than medicine (2011) USA.
- Survey of Physicians about Pharmaceutical and Biotech Research Company Activities and Information (2008) Survey Commissioned by PhRMA, KRC Research.
- Huthwaite International South Yorkshire, United Kingdom.
- Death of the sales rep is greatly exaggerated (2011) Pharmalot Boston.
- Marketing Roundup Client (2012) DRG Solutions Burlington, USA.
- Overview Gryphon scientific Services and skills. Carroll Ave, Maryland.
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCDeBAD75Pg
- Michael E Porter (2010) What is value in Health care? N Engl J Med 363: 2477-2481.
- http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ /IMS Urban leyends
- http://www.imshealth.com/portal/site/ /IMS Urban leyends