Recently, my colleague Sue Pelletier wrote an article for the July/August 2006 issue of Medical Meetings called "Think Bold: To Change Physician Behavior, You Need to Change Your CME." The article was based on a workshop held earlier this year for continuing medical education professionals.

Lessons from CME

Many of the techniques for engaging physicians that were mentioned in the article can also be applied to rep-physician interactions.

Step off the stage and engage in dialogue. Physician behavior drives today's pharmaceutical marketing tactics, and sales representatives are often tasked with "changing physician behavior." CME professionals are urged to shift from being a "sage on the stage" to acting as a "guide on the side" by coming out from behind the podium and facilitating a clinical dialogue among physician participants. Although pharmaceutical representatives aren't speaking with physicians from behind a podium, there is a temptation to get into a mini-presentation mode. Effective interaction between physicians and pharmaceutical representatives occurs when the representative steps off the figurative stage and fights the urge to data-dump on the physician during the allotted meeting time.

Apply the appropriate clinical message. I'm not going to rouse the angst of marketers by calling for representatives to detract from products' marketing messages. I am going to call for representatives to assess what the appropriate clinical message may be for a certain clinic or physician group. Successful CME events are practical and based on true needs. CME providers are sometimes criticized for using program assessments to confirm what the providers already know rather than to discover what the participants need to learn. Similarly, a sales representative may use the same product message across different clinics and physician groups that may have varying patient profiles, clinical concerns or risk-benefit priorities. This diversity may explain why, for example, a side effect is perceived as more undesirable at one account than at another.

Help physicians discover clinical needs. A CME program is most effective when it covers not just the participants' perceived needs but also needs that the participants may not have anticipated. This concept of uncovering unperceived needs is not new to veteran sales professionals who know they can create value when they help a customer become aware of needs he might not have thought of otherwise but that impact his business.

Effective representatives are tuned into their products' prescribing trends at a national level. They usually gain a big-picture perspective of feedback about their products at regional or national sales meetings. The rep bears in mind local trends and population differences that may result in a certain physician behavior in her territory, and thus she is able to identify data that a physician may become interested in even before the physician shows interest or share important safety data with a clinic well before physicians begin to voice concern.

Reps who can help doctors uncover clinical needs are more likely to be viewed by physicians as a trusted source of information. While pharmaceutical reps are not looking to "educate" doctors on how to treat patients, representatives should be the experts on their own products. Effective representatives are conversant on clinical studies supporting approved indications, their product's safety profile and general side effect management strategies.

Communicate in specifics. If you've read my past columns, you know I'm a big fan of specifics, especially when communicating clinical information. CME providers are urged to be very specific when they communicate a program's goals to the participants, even differentiating between program goals and program objectives: A clinical goal might be to improve diabetic patient care, while a clinical objective might be to treat diabetic patients per national treatment guidelines.

Similarly, a common (and dangerous) mistake representatives make when communicating clinical data is making general claims that regulatory agencies look unkindly upon. The words I'd like to ban from a representative's vocabulary are "safe" and "works" – for example, "This drug is safe!" or "This product works!" Just how safe is "safe"? In what context does the product work? Communicating in specifics requires you to know the data — for example, the incidence of the most commonly observed side effects when compared with a test drug or placebo, or better yet, published information on management of the most commonly observed side effects.

By applying relevant principles adopted by CME providers, pharmaceutical representatives can make the best use of the time they have with physicians.