Medical - Common Health

Common Health is a large medical products company whose headquarters is located in Parsippany, New Jersey. Common Health markets and sells the drug products of numerous large pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Johnson and Johnson. Executives at Common Health delineated a nagging problem to which they seek a solution. We believe we have a viable solution to that problem using OFID technology.

Problem: Doctors today have little or no time to read and absorb sales literature describing new drug products. It has become increasingly difficult to even get such information in front of doctors. The only way that Common Health has been able to capture the attention of doctors to new products is to offer them premiums. The cost of such premiums is escalating at an alarming rate.

Challenge: How can OFID technology be used to enhance the process of selling new pharmaceutical products to doctors?

Premise for a Solution:
The antidote to doctor resistance to learn about new drugs is to have a way to deliver relevant, up to date information on new drugs on a real-time, "need to know" basis. In other words, at the time a doctor is seeing and treating a patient with a specific diagnosis, information is delivered upon request regarding new drugs directly related to that diagnosis.

Ideal Scenario Using OFID Technology:
At the time of a patient's visit, the doctor accesses that patient's medical records. He/she does this using the same combination OFID secure medical record access key and universal medical card that the patient uses to view their own medical records on-line, via their HMO's medical record database (see Consumer Bill of Rights for Health Care). When the doctor brings up the patient's medical records, invisible software scans the records for diagnostic key words. A window immediately opens over the records. This window asks the doctor if he/she would like to see information on any new drugs specifically related to any of the key diagnostic words that are listed in the window. If the doctor says no, the window disappears, leaving the medical records on the screen. Alternately, if the doctor does want information on new drugs, he/she is told to simply click on any of the key words for which they want such information.

When the doctor clicks on a key word e.g. osteoarthritis, a message is automatically sent to Common Health's on-line drug database that contains frequently updated information on all new drugs offered by all the companies it represents. The message to the database triggers a search and retrieval process, whereby information on drugs specifically related to the key word the doctor clicked is retrieved and sent to the doctor. The desired information appears on the doctor's screen within seconds. The doctor will have two choices. He/she can read it then on-screen, save it to the record, or print it out for later reference. Through this process, without a live sales contact or need to offer a premium, doctors will themselves choose to view the information within the context of an actual patient's need at the time of the patient's visit. Furthermore, if the doctor is interested in a particular drug, he/she can order a sample or larger order of that drug, on-line, right then and there, in a matter of a few seconds. This configuration essentially creates a worldwide, 24-7, drop-ship sales process for Common Health that would save it millions of dollars in sales time and premium costs. It could also result in a considerable increase in sales.