We live in a world where technology is an integral part of our lives, but there is no platform that integrates promoted drugs by all pharmaceutical companies—yet. This is where Docformative steps in. Docformative provides drug and medical information that pharma needs to convey, and doctors require, all in one digital platform, free to healthcare providers. It transforms the sales rep experience into a modern digital interaction and aims to supplement the sales rep to facilitate efficient flow of imperative information.
Pharmaceutical sales reps have been the linchpin between pharma and healthcare providers for decades. They are the ones who educate the providers about new drugs on the markets, data regarding new treatments, efficacy and safety of studies, etc. Pharma reps are also the ones who connect the providers to the pharma company. This link is vital, especially when providers have any questions regarding the new therapies that they are unable to answer. When this occurs, the questions are taken back to headquarters and referred to an expert at the company.
Even though pharma reps are essential to the healthcare profession, they have always had a difficult job gaining access to physicians and healthcare providers. While they have important information about new, promoted drugs providers need to know for improved patient care, their access to health care providers, offices, clinics, and hospitals has steadily decreased. As access to providers has become more limited, the relationship between pharma reps and providers has become more and more difficult to maintain. Providers have been tasked with an increasing patient load in addition to an increasing amount of administrative duties, making their time more valuable and leaving little time to be interrupted by sales reps. Furthermore, many clinics, offices, and hospitals have banned sales reps from seeing physicians, other health care providers or even entering the building. The COVID-19 pandemic has made this situation even worse with restrictions to providers now being even more widespread for safety and health reasons.
Docformative is a new digital platform that helps to alleviate these problems. The ecosystem keeps providers up to date with the latest drug and medical information and establishes direct communication with pharmaceutical companies.
The benefits to both the pharma company and the providers are multiple. The pharma company places their marketing and educational materials on branded drugs onto the platform which sits in an app on the mobile phone in the pocket of the providers. This allows the pharma company to reach providers where reps have been previously banned and/or reach providers in remote areas of the country where no reps are located. The providers can now access the material at their leisure on demand and not be interrupted from their busy schedule. The app gives the providers direct access to the pharma company as well. The providers can initiate a chat with a company specialist (the sales rep or the Medical Science Liaison) to get answers to questions they have or ask for more information should they need it. In addition, providers can request drug samples at the push of a button–a task that has previously been difficult. If there is new safety information on a drug or new clinical data, a notification can be pushed out to all users to instantly alert them of important information that helps them care for their patients. To further help providers with their busy schedule and improve patient care, the Docformative app provides up to date medical news (provided by MedicalXpress.com) and the ability to look up the full, unedited FDA approved drug labeling on all drugs approved in the US.
“We envision a time when all the pharma companies’ promoted drugs are on our platform,” said Raphael Chudaitov, the CEO of Docformative. “Being a neutral third party, we offer an even playing field, so no company receives any preferential treatment. This way, providers can be comfortable using our platform knowing we aren’t pushing anything but knowledge.” The platform is and will always be free for providers.
Why hasn’t this done before? “Digital apps are not in the pharma companies’ wheelhouse,” replied Dr. Jeffrey Levine, the Chief Medical Officer, who had been a pharma physician for over 25 years. “Some companies have tried to produce their own apps and a bunch of these apps were floating around the App Store, but rarely, if ever, used. The user experience was awful. In addition, there are dozens of pharma companies out there. If each company produced their own app, there would be dozens of apps to be downloaded and each one would require their own sign-up and registration process. What provider would be willing to download dozens of pharma companies’ apps?” With Docformative, the provider downloads a single app, and with one quick registration process, has direct access to all the pharma companies and their educational material.
The Docformative app is an easy to use and extremely intuitive app that is already available in the Apple App store. The company is in talks with a few big pharma companies, but providers can benefit now from the medical news, the drug labeling, and important alerts the platform has to offer. Health Care Provides (providers with MD, DO, PA or NP degrees) can download and sign-up for the platform using their NPI number (a publicly available number assigned to each HCP by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services). As of now, the app only runs on iOS devices, but an Android and web app will be available soon.
Docformative is a new and innovative digital platform that brings pharma and providers together in a way that has never been done before. Docformative helps solve the problem that pharma companies have getting information out to providers and allows providers to easily get the information they need to better treat their patients, all from the device in their pocket.
Be First to Comment